Highlights of EE conf in Sydney

"Culture eats strategy for lunch. You can have a good strategy but if you don't have the culture and enabling systems to implement that strategy you will fail." 

~Dick Clark, CEO Merck USA

The second in the series of Australian "National HR Solutions & Strategies Summits" on Employee Engagement takes us to Sydney and a surprise change of venue to the Grace Hotel with its neo-Gothic exterior and Art Deco interior. 

Like the previous week in Melbourne, this conference delivered the goods with a series of insightful case studies and useful lessons on the people side of business. My favourite quote of the day is listed above; in what follows are some further highlights.

The engagement journey continues…
 

Reporter: "What do you think of Western civilization?"
Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."
 

Sophie Crawford-Jones of PwC gave us an informative overview of how the concept of engagement has developed over the past four decades as well as her thoughts on where it’s going over the next few years. While I like with the theoretical construct Sophie offered, I also think it’s fair to say that, whatever the next big thing in engagement is likely to be in 2010 and beyond, organizations still have a great deal of work to do in the here-and-now. 

Or to paraphrase Gandhi: while many more people nowadays are familiar with the concept of people engagement, effective engagement practice is often still in its early days.
 

Who’s telling your story?
 

The good news is that, as organizations seek to create a culture that invites greater engagement with their people, there are some practices that have proven helpful. Several examples were given of how leaders and managers used compelling stories to link people’s proven resilience in the past in ways that help to get them through hard times today with a clear vision of the future. 

This narrative approach acknowledges the reality that every moment is an engagement opportunity. It's not just an "HR responsibility" but needs to involve senior leadership and happen at all levels of the organization. And it’s not one-off events or even CEO roadshows that do it - effective engagement lives and breathes in your culture and must be related to every single thing that people do in the business.
 

It’s great to have a CEO who "gets it" and even better to have one who can tell engaging stories. It’s also true that stories can only gain currency and influence people’s daily behaviour when they are told and retold. That requires leaders and managers throughout your organization who also "get it", who can spread the influence of those stories with equally motivating effect. In other words, it falls to your people managers to engage your people.
 

In this quest to develop people managers into effective engagement allies, I was heartened to hear how one organization is getting some good results. Josie Gosling gave NineMSN’s answer to making this happen, with what they call communication champions. The idea is as genius as it is simple: there are already a handful of people in your organization that everybody else asks to explain and clarify what’s going on. These people are "naturals" - they have a talent for communication and/or the status and influence within the organization’s social networks that make their voices stand out. 

Let me quickly note two useful principles at work here: 1) a use what works (or solution-focused) approach helps you get fast results by working with people’s strengths, in this case communication "naturals", and 2) the realization that these communication/influencing talents can be found anywhere in your organization and don’t necessarily have anything to do with role or positional power.
 

Once you’ve identified these people…make them your new best friends! Do everything you can to develop their natural abilities (through mentoring, coaching and skills-building) and have the courage to "give it to ‘em straight" by making them part of the inner circle of communication practice. Giving them the big-picture perspective behind the messages will help them communicate better and, in turn, model the kind of engaging communication behaviour you want happening in your organization.
 

Setting the Stage for Success
 

Once the story of your organization is captured and consciously promoted, it will start to become clear which actors may not have a part to play in future performance. In both Sydney and Melbourne, conference speakers repeatedly made the point that low turnover can actually be a bad thing. As much as you need to actively retain your best people, you also need a standard practice to move out poor contributors.
 

Doing so in a grown-up and dignified way not only shows your commitment to do right by the people who ultimately leave - it can have a powerfully positive effect on those who stay. What's more, when a difficult situation is finally addressed the relief is palpable ("Well thank god…we've been talking about this for ages, now it’s finally behind us!"). 

As Chris Disley of Mars Food Australia pointed out, managers who can effectively manage low performers and disengaged people out of the organization actually get higher engagement scores as a result.
 

Chris also shared a crucial conversations exercise in which team members are asked, "If you left the company today to start your own business, who would you take with you…?" Naturally you need to contextualize the conversation and make clear this is a though-exercise, not an invitation to jump ship! While potentially confronting, such a process of rank-ordering people’s contribution from greatest to least can be a vital step toward having the kind of open and honest conversations that need to happen in effective teams.
 

Skills + behaviours = great performance
 

Finally, besides offering the quote that heads this post, Jason Flanagan of BT Financial Group gave some ideas on how to engage with your talented up-and-comers. He described how "high-potential" staff are matched with internal projects that tackle real business problems (e.g. bureaucracy-busting, new product development, etc.). Here I’d like to introduce a distinction that helps make sense of why this is a great example of people development that’s engaging too.
 

A skill is defined as "the ability to do something well" and is essentially the knowledge gained when for example you learn a tool, process or concept on a course. A behaviour, however, is "the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward others" and manifests in the actual application of skills and knowledge - in real business contexts, on an ongoing basis.
 

So giving your top talent projects in the business is a great idea because it ticks many boxes:

• they get the recognition they deserve (often worth as much or more than money) and a chance to strut their stuff
• as they work on the project there’s a chance to identify skills gaps that may emerge and target them for further development (so you can send them on courses, e.g. effective communication skills, project management and the like)
• perhaps most importantly, projects offer a practical way to apply their skills in real-world business contexts; combined with an effective mentoring/coaching program this means they learn a skill, give it a go through "live" application, talk through the results, then make needed adjustments (a double-loop learning process crucial to embedding a skill as an ongoing behaviour)
• and all this development is not extra-curricular and in addition to their day-job, but sits within the organization and produces useful outcomes for the organization.

In sum, these were a couple of informative and useful conferences, filled with "war-stories" and good ideas from HR and Comms professionals. Their stories clearly made the point that your engagement strategy will stand or fall based on the ability of your people managers to make it real as they engage with people. The stories that are alive in your organization will grow and thrive to the degree that you’ve got talented managers breathing life into them - so it makes sense to set them up for success. 

And for those who don’t have a part to play in your story’s future, you need to actively do what’s right for them and your organization by applying the other basic use what works principle: if something’s not working, stop doing it!
 

Hope you found these ideas useful and they take you a few steps closer to good people engagement, increased contribution and better business results.

.

People Engagement sessions in Melbourne and Sydney

I'm presenting a couple of sessions at this year's "National HR Solutions/Strategies Summit" happening on 13-14 May at the Bayview on the Park in Melbourne and on 17-18 May at the Amora Jamison Hotel in Sydney.*

The sessions are entitled, "It's not Business. It's Personal" - People Engagement that works, on how to use the people-centred practices of Appreciative Inquiry and the Solutions Focus to turn engagement strategy into everyday reality. 

There's a white paper on the subject too, a version of which will be available via this blog in the near future.

For the moment, here's an excerpt from the report summary below:

High people engagement is a hard thing to get right but the payoffs are tremendous – in monetary and nonmonetary terms, including:

•  improved operating income and higher profitability 

• better company performance 

• lower staff turnover, absenteeism and sick leave 

• better customer satisfaction and increased sales

Engagement describes a relationship and, like any relationship, it takes time and constant attention to nurture its development. And business-as-usual doesn’t cut it. Because it’s not business, it’s personal.

Making business personal means having a people-positive culture. Appreciative Inquiry and the Solutions Focus offer practical, action-based ways to quickly bring out the best in your people and, by extension, your organization.

The Solutions Focus in particular is such a SIMPLE (though not easy!) approach that people quickly find themselves asking different questions and interacting in more positive and productive ways. And so “the way we do things around here” starts to shift in ways that actively engage people, because they’re the ones doing the shifting.

Your organization’s engagement strategy will stand or fall based on the ability of your people managers to make it real as they engage with people. Think of the numerous touch-points in your organization where engagement is created (or lost) every day. Equipping your people managers (a.k.a. your engagement allies) with these AI and SF tools can speed up that shift toward a healthy engagement culture.

Remember the engagement gold standard: when your culture fosters adult, two- way relationships between leaders/managers and employees, in which challenges are met and goals achieved, you get good people engagement, increased contribution and better business results.

Turn the “soft stuff” of human behaviour into your competitive advantage by engaging the whole person: make your business personal.

Promoting team engagement: article now online

You can find practical tips and techniques in my case study on Promoting team engagement at Lloyds TSB that's just been published at Melcrum's Internal Communications Hub.

To learn more about the details of this case study and get other great insights into building engagement, check out Melcrum's bi-annual Employee Engagement conference which I'll be Chairing on 21-22 April 2010 in Melbourne.
.

Apprentice week 8 analysis, RWA: Effective Collaboration

Summary: We know collaboration often brings greater benefits than competing or working alone. So how come we don't do it more often? The answer is simple: fear. This post reviews the combined episodes 8/9 of The Apprentice Australia and offers a Real-World Application (RWA) in how to overcome fearful states and promote effective collaboration.


Review of episodes 8 & 9
Taking both episodes together, we saw the remaining candidates exhibit many of their habitual behaviour patterns - with effects both good and ill.

Sabrina was fired in the first half of the episode for her poor conflict management ability and for the cardinal sin of fence-sitting. Faced with Mary-Anne and Heather's respective versions of self-assertion and the sparks that resulted, Sabrina seemed to just step back and keep herself out of the fray. Sabrina called them a pair of "bossy-boots" and stated that she found Heather "forceful" (with strong negative connotation) yet while the clear conflict and tension between her teammates had a negative effect on performance, she did nothing. Her response in the Boardroom on the conflict was: "I'm in the middle." To which Mark Bouris replied, "That's not a good place to be" and Sabrina exclaimed, "Oh!" in a small voice, unaware that her withdrawal and conflict avoidance would be her downfall.

This was a missed opportunity for her to engage with the other two authentically, perhaps to admit that she frankly didn't know what to do but that something needed to be done to address the conflict. It's hard to say what the result would have been, but often an honest admission and willingness to name the elephant in the room is enough to get people thinking differently. That Sabrina felt out of her depth was clear when in the Boardroom she added: "I think it takes character to step up and admit that you are not qualified to do something." She's right, and here I think we finally got a glimpse of the authentic Sabrina...but the timing was tragically too late and she paid the price.

Mary-Anne was this week's second departure, fired for a lack of collaboration and "mateship" with Morello on the Shopping Channel challenge. Having fair bowled Morello over to be Project Leader, her style as leader demonstrated poor judgement in product choice for him to sell and in failing to do for him as he had done for her: support a team member in a moment of difficulty.

Mary-Anne's strong focus on competence has in past weeks prompted her to put her hand up and take reponsibility straightaway when things have gone wrong (particularly on the Mudgee Pub Night challenge). This is to her credit, an example of her Pacesetting leadership style at work, with an expectation of competence and very high standards for performance. Where it falls down for her was shown this week, as Morello fell afoul of those same high standards by making a simple mistake, and was punished with laughter, isolation and embarrassment. For her intolerance, she got fired.

Heather was very assertive about how to do the band makeover in the first challenge in the all-girls team, then not assertive enough about how to run the teleprompting when paired with Gavin on second challenge, which invites consideration of just how well she works with female colleagues (from my recollection, most of her head-butting in past episodes has been in all- or majority-female teams). As I'd said in the week 8 preview, her take-charge, my-way-or-the-highway style produced conflict, which she showed she still has to learn how to manage. In the first challenge, having appointing herself the lead for two of the tasks, Heather once again overextended herself: she initiated a last-minute remix of the band's demo tape (the quality of which came in for harsh criticism by the music industry execs) and running dangerously behind schedule with the band's styling appointment.

Meanwhile in the Boardroom it took Heather a long time to back herself on the subject of her conflict with Mary-Anne. She practically needed to receive permission from Mark Bouris before stating her opinion on the matter. Based on the music execs' reaction to her presentation, I think she gets easily triggered by hearing advice and feedback (however constructive) and responds emotionally by trying to explain herself. In the final episode I think she'll place second; what costs her the victory will be inflexibly expecting things to be done her way, lack of awareness of her effect on others, and the combination of timidity at making a case for her value-add/reactivity towards advice that is actually meant to help her to develop and grow.

I looked to Gavin for some real changes this week and to my delight we were treated to a very different side of him in both of this week's challenges. After my plea last week for him let people in and be more genuine, I think he has shown us some authenticity. As with all new behaviours, it doubtless felt pretty strange for him and from the outside it looked a bit awkward, but full credit to him for stepping outside his comfort zone. The question for him in the final will be whether the pressure and the presence of previously-fired candidates will rekindle the old interpersonal dynamics and cause him to revert to game-playing. Even if he continues with his new-found authentic behaviour, it may be too little, too late to win the trust of the Boss and win the competition. A respectable third place and some invaluable and insightful life lessons will be his reward.

Throughout this competition it's been easy to think of Morello as the kind of guy you could easily work with: friendly, ethical, creative, practical and a cool head under pressure. Sure he's really high-energy and (as Gavin quipped this week) always needs to be the centre of attention, but for a guy his age those are unsurprising and not insurmountable traits. More to the point, we haven't seen from him either the shameless ego-tripping or the egoless "shrinking violet" behaviour that's been the downfall of other candidates.

To quote the saying again, people are most often hired on experience, fired on personality. I think Morello will be Australia's first Apprentice in what could be a case of someone hired for their personality in order to develop the needed experience. If so, well done to him for his perseverance and to his Boss for making a choice that's most likely to reap great developmental and performance results for them both.


Why it's so Hard to Collaborate: Three Kinds of Personal Fear

"We know the good...but do not do it."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (attributed)

Throughout The Apprentice Australia series we've seen so-called "teams" tearing themselves apart during the challenges and particularly in the Boardroom. I've previously characterized this as a little more than a corporate dogfight pit.

In a recent post, Charles H. Green talked about Why it's so hard to collaborate, concluding that personal fear undermines collaboration. When you think about it, this makes sense and in this way The Apprentice rings true: with a format designed to foster infighting and trigger candidates into fearful, limbic responses, it reminds us in the audience of behaviour we've all experienced before in organizational setting. With this twinge of recognition (and the safe distance of impersonally watching it happen to someone else) the program hooks its viewers.

I want to suggest there are three main kinds of fear at work here:

1. Knowledge is power - triggered by strong feelings and emotions, intrusive/demanding people or situations, being surprised, broken confidences, dishonesty, out-of-control situations, and feeling inadequate or powerless, one fear response is, "I'll keep all the cards to myself, then I'll be the expert and everyone will have to rely on me." An example of this behaviour in the series was Lynton - nonemotional, positioning himself as the expert and being unwilling to collaborate with others. There were moments when Carmen displayed this behaviour ("I'm in it for me," power's all that matters, no team focus) and Mary-Anne too, for example when she was hard on herself for lacking the knowledge she thought she needed and displayed intolerance and impatience toward Sabrina and Morello when she thought they were incompetent.
   
   
2. Distrustful/What if...? - triggered by feeling helpless, out of control, in danger or potential harm, subject to pressure, and/or experiencing a lack of commitment, this second fear response is to constantly ask oneself "What if this happens? What if that happens?" while trying to keep oneself safe from entanglements or commitments - which looks from the outside like hanging back, being guarded and disconnected from others. We saw this behaviour primarily from Blake, totally hanging back and seeming noncommittal about most tasks, getting fired in the end because he was unable or unwilling to come forward. As discussed last week, Gavin and Sabrina have also at times hidden their genuine selves behind masks and game-playing.
   
   
3. Difficult/painful situations - triggered by frustrations, restraints, limitations, painful situations or feelings, boredom or routine, feeling dismissed, not taken seriously or unjustly criticized, this fear response seeks to avoid the situation entirely by shifting focus or substituting some other topic. Heather has demonstrated this by consistently avoiding feedback, by being unaware to come to grips with the negative effect her assertive (forceful) behaviour has on others and being unable to deal constructively with conflict. Similarly, Morello's laughing/joking personable style has the benefit of helping him avoid hardship, steering clear of tough situations.
   

Real-World Application (RWA): Effective collaboration

Charles Green's piece on collaboration ends with the following observation:

There are two simple approaches to lowering fear. One is to mitigate risk. The other is to stop being so fearful. The first one is getting most of the press; we need more of the second. [emphasis added]

To address each of the three most common fear reactions listed above, here are a few pointers:

1. Offer well-researched and detailed content, specific and fact-based; strive to reduce the emotional charge of content and depersonalize/be objective; conduct meetings and make announcements in appropriate, agreed-upon venues; make sure you include an open Q&A session for people to request clarification and details.
   
   
2. Build rapport before moving into content, then use clear statements of goals and intent with concrete specifics; give reassurance about the exact magnitude of problem to help people avoid catastrophizing/assuming the worst; create opportunities for people to play devil's advocate and challenge authority (don't dismiss this as "resistance" because there's often useful information to be gained from differing perspectives); communicate the underlying motives and reasons for changes; provide assurances of support and ongoing communication; where possible offer people options from which to choose; give suggestions early on to help people foresee positive outcomes.
   
   
3. Offer executive summaries and "quick overviews"; allow for expression of people's creative input (even if not strictly-speaking on track with the subject matter at hand); affirm people's competence and use a strengths-based approach to any training/developmental requirements; offer a variety of communication modes/channels (fast-paced, visual, interactive); validate people's experiences and perspectives; don't "pull rank" and try to enforce a change through command-and-control.
   

Building Bridges of Collaboration

People in organizations must continually deal with change. As a leader/manager, your challenge is two-fold: to face your own feelings and reactions to change and then to effectively lead your team through their own reactions (fear, anger, etc.)...and all this while doing your "day job" and delivering the tangible results that you're paid to make happen.

Managing fear and promoting collaboration requires you to know what to say and how to say it. When leaders add this to their already long list of tasks, it can seem a bit overwhelming.

That's where tmc can help.

As you build the bridge that will take you and your team from where you are to where you need to be, tmc can act as an invaluable support. You'll gain peace of mind knowing that structures and processes are in place to address the people issues associated with your change project. With this assurance, you'll be free to concentrate on delivering the work required of you, benefitting from the high performance and increased productivity that comes from a positive team environment.

To find out more contact me directly. We can have a conversation to explore your particular situation and context, helping you achieve clarity on where you are, where you need to be, and how to build the bridges that will get you there.


Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.


Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management
Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart
Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture
Apprentice week 4 analysis, RWA: Coaching for high performance
Apprentice week 5 analysis, RWA: "The Relationship is the Customer"
Apprentice week 6 analysis, RWA: The FIT model
Apprentice week 7 analysis, RWA: Authentic Emotional Intelligence
Apprentice episode 8 preview: double trouble


Photo credit: Bridge

Apprentice week 4 analysis, RWA: Coaching for high performance

Summary: Today's post reviews episode 4 of The Apprentice Australia and offers a Real-World Application (RWA) on "Coaching individuals for high performance," in organizations and on their own.

To learn more about how tmc coaching can help you and your organization, read this 2-page overview on tmc coaching, learn about the Solution-Focused coaching style, or simply email Todd.


Review of episode 4: Pub Nights in Mudgee

The Boss: Mark Bouris
In the time between last week's episode and this one it seems Mark Bouris has reflected upon and/or received good counsel about his decision making in the Boardroom. I suspect this week we're starting to see more of the good judgment that's made him an Australian business success story.

This time in the Boardroom when both Heather and MaryAnn took full responsibility for aspects of their team's shortcomings - with MaryAnn even offering to forfeit Team Pinnacle's clear victory on ethical grounds - Mr Bouris praised rather than punished their displays of accountability. In addition he came down much harder on potentially misleading advertising and in so doing remedied the errors in judgement that I thought he made last week.

Another development in the Mark Bouris' style this week was what I think is a useful shift in perspective. Rather than pressing each team's Project Lead to talk about the "weakest link" in their team, Mr Bouris made several comments on the positive traits he saw in team members - which recalls the ideas offered in the analysis of episode 2 on giving feedback using the Affirm technique.

Offering someone positive feedback doesn't mean you close the door on pointing out his/her areas of development (which we've all got!). On the contrary, it's a highly effective way to help the person stay on top of his/her emotional reactions and win the Battle inside their Brain.

Neuroscience is beginning to offer hard evidence to help explain what we implicitly know from lived experience. In particular, it suggests that the "Command and Control" approach isn't an effective way to motivate, develop or lead people. When we feel threatened and get defensive our capacity to pay attention, take in new information and process it creatively essentially disappears.

In The Apprentice format, the people who get the most feedback in the Boardroom on their performance (and especially areas for development) are typically the three who are up for elimination. True, this ensures they will pay close attention to what's said, but for one of them the feedback will come too late to be effectively applied in further weeks. This week's trio on the hotseat were from Team Eventus.

This week in the Boardroom

As Team Eventus Project Lead, Heather again exhibited the sort of controlling behaviour that she did in episode 2 when she was put in charge of designing the cereal box graphics. This week did not use a consultative decision-making style and instead quickly arrived at what she thought was the "right" decision on the price for the evening. This was followed by a lot of positive talk (e.g. This is going to be great! It's going to be awesome! Why wouldn't anyone come to a night like this?! etc.) to convince herself and presumably her team that this was the right decision, but this positivity had the effect of making it hard for her team to tell her that they all thought the price was too high.

What ended up happening was the team fell victim to the psychological error of confirmation bias. They saw only the information that confirmed Heather's pre-existing decision about the price - information that ultimately proved inaccurate, since on the night people were unwilling to pay such a high price for the product on offer. Despite a last-minute inspiration to raise more money with a raffle in the bar, her team lost by over $1,000 ($2,814 vs. $3,930).

In the Boardroom Heather was credited with being "passionate and optimistic" but this loss caused her to "eat humble pie". Asked why she should stay, Heather could muster little more than, "I have so much more to give". She was advised by Mr Bouris to improve her management skills, which I'd suggest would among other things involve her learning to hear other people out rather than jumping prematurely to the one, "right" decision. This is a team member with great potential but as Mr Bouris suggested, could definitely benefit from some coaching to frankly assess her own strengths and weaknesses and clearly identify what she has to offer.

This week smooth-talking charmer Gavin missed a trick by failing to think of the table sponsorships idea - a financial blunder that cost his team the victory. Though in the Boardroom he made much of "putting his hand in" and actively participate in every project, and though he was credited with confidence and persuasiveness, he was faulted for seeming unwilling to take accountability when things fail to work out as planned.

As before, Gavin needs to do more than look good and speak well. Mr Bouris pointed out that he is "the guy the team looks toward" when they need leadership and stated, "You've been too measured...I want to see the real Gavin, I want to see the best come out of you from now on." While he is clearly strong at the intangible areas of relationship development and team building, a development area for Gavin continues to be producing tangible practical results - in this case, setting a course of action and sticking to it, not getting distracted by the dancing girls, costumes, making friends and doing deals. While clearly adept at playing to this strengths, Gavin could usefully be coached to become aware of his blindspots and formulate a course of action that addresses them.

It was hard not to feel for Blake this week, whose halting performance in the Boardroom exhibited a clear lack of confidence, even a bewilderment at what was happening around him, and a lack of energy to fight for his own survival. He was faulted by Mr Bouris for not stepping up on decisions and for flying under the radar, which Blake said he "does not do on purpose." Yet when asked why he should stay could only muster: "I don't have the background [in marketing]...I have skills but not experience. [...] I'm here to work for an organization I can build a career out of" - hardly a compelling case of value-add to Mr Bouris' organization.

Self-doubt of this sort is normal and we all experience it occasionally (otherwise we'd risk becoming thoughtless automatons or egomaniacs). The time and place to express it, however, is not the kill-or-be-killed Boardroom setting. This is a clear case of someone whose performance is slipping and could benefit from coaching. A coach could help Blake to a) identify what he wants and b) develop an practical action plan that plays to his strengths, to help him focus less on apologizing for what he can't do and get the best results from those things that he does well.


Real-World Application (RWA): Coaching for high performance

I liked the moment when Mark Bouris mused aloud, "there's some positives there, we've got to try to figure out how we get the best out of them." Above I've suggested some ways that coaching could help develop these three people. Similarly, in previous reviews I've highlighted personality and character traits that would be useful to explore and develop in a coaching conversation.

When I speak to people about coaching, however, I notice there's a lot of confusion about the subject. Since coaching came into vogue in the business world some years ago there's been an explosion in both the different kinds of coaching on offer (executive-, business-, skills-, team-, behavioural-, personal-, life-, sports-, health-, and even dating-coaching!) and the sheer number of people who now call what they do "coaching"...with widely varying degrees of expertise. There seem to be a lot of misconceptions these days about what a coach does and how the coaching process works.

Here are my views on coaching - what it is, what it isn't, and what it can do for you and your organization.

"Hey, I don't need therapy!!"
Some people shy away from coaching because they think it's going to get all soupy, emotional or just too personal...like some kind of therapy or counselling. Broadly speaking, while therapy tends to focus on feelings and experiences related to past events, coaching is oriented towards goal setting and encourages you to move forward. So you don't have to be sick to get better: while therapy aims at helping a dysfunctional person to become functional, coaching helps a functional person to achieve high performance and is action-oriented. The focus is on where your are right now, where you want to be, and how you can get yourself there.

"How's that different from having a mentor?"
Mentoring differs from coaching in both the type of expertise on offer and the nature of the relationship. A mentor typically has years of experience in the field, someone who is able to offer advice from the perspective of "been there, done that." The means the mentor is usually older and more experienced than the person being mentored and the relationship is more teacher-pupil. An important difference from coaching, then, is that a coach does not need any expertise in the client's field of work, while a mentor provides the perspective of "when I was in your shoes and facing the same situation, here's what I did...."

Coaching for high performance
A coach works in side-by-side with you to explore your current situation with the objective of identifying what you want to achieve and creating a plan of action to help you get there. In this process the coach does not have to be an expert in the client’s business - the client is the expert. The coach's expertise in this partnership is to serve as a sounding board and to occasionally reflect back certain information (like recurring themes or patterns).

Note, however, that the coach does not have the answers. The coach's role is to ask useful, thought-provoking questions - ones that encourage you to find your own answers and clarify your own thinking. The real value of a coach is to help you draw on your own wisdom and insight, arriving at your own conclusions and resolve to address the situation with practical action.

In this way a great coach is a little bit like Lao Tzu's definition of a great leader: "...he who the people barely know exists and, when his work is done and his aim fulfilled, people will say: we did it ourselves." Or as renowned psychologist Carl Rogers is credited with saying, "in order to truly help someone we must be able to enter their lives, help them resolve their issues and then exit their lives without them ever knowing we were there."

How can organizations and individuals benefit from coaching?
While it's tricky to put a precise ROI on an intangible service like coaching, here are a few stats that have been compiled over time:

• A study of Fortune 100 executives found that coaching resulted in an ROI of almost six times the program cost as well as a 77% improvement in relationships, 67% improvement in teamwork, 61% improvement in job satisfaction, 48% improvement in quality. (Manchester Consulting Group)
• Productivity increased by 88 percent when coaching was combined with training, as compared to a 22 percent increase with training alone. (International Personnel Management Association)
• A study of a Fortune 500 telecommunications company found that executive coaching resulted in a 529 percent ROI. (MetrixGlobal)
• Productivity among salespeople who had participated in an intensive coaching program rose by an average of 35 percent (Metropolitan Life Insurance Company)

Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management
Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart
Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture

Credits: I gained useful insight and the ROI stats, from Dutchcoach. Photo of Heather by Richard Polden.

Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart

Summary: This post reviews episode 2 of The Apprentice Australia and offers Real-World Applications (RWAs) on how to give and receive feedback.

Previous related posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management

Analysis of week two

TEAM EVENTUS (winning team)

What was shown of the behaviour the all-female team members demonstrated a team divided... dare I say: catty?

Carmen's comments about team leader Sabrina (whom she had invited into the Boardroom with her last week for potential elimination) were critical and caustic, in keeping with Carmen's central theme of revenge for perceived betrayal. Watch for more fireworks from Carmen's corner as it seems she has not yet learned how to channel her abundant energy into more productive behaviour.

Heather joined in the fray early this week when her desire to use her experience in advertising as team leader was thwarted by Sabrina thrusting herself forward for the role. Heather did not contest Sabrina's suggestion but then seemed inwardly resentful throughout the task as a result - a function of not wanting to deal with a difficult or potentially painful situation. When Heather did apply her experience to the project, we saw another side of her: a perfectionist pursuit of what is right according to her expertise/rules. Working with the graphic designer she repeatedly said, "no that's not it, that's not right" and worked literally up to the last minute on fine-tuning and adjustments - which could have led to disaster. Despite this long time commitment, Heather looked stressed and anxious during the pitch, most probably out of fear that it still wasn't right. In the weeks to come a developmental goal for Heather will be to present her ideas assertively while also making room for other perspectives, adopting a position of curiosity rather than a compulsive quest for what is right according to her own standards.

Sabrina wasted no time in putting herself forward to shine this week - and then manifestly failed to do so. Using her characterisitc forcefulness she effectively nominated and acclaimed herself team leader at the outset (team approval at that point being really just a formality in her mind). In the event, not much was shown of her leadership or contribution to the project aside from her singing voice on the jingle and her delivery of a negative and critical assessment of Heather's design efforts. Worse, she nearly blew what to that point had been a strong team pitch to the Ogilvy execs by getting defensive during the Q&A and arguing with their feedback. Incredibly, she repeated this blunder in the Boardroom by cutting across and attempting to correct Diane Stone's report on Eventus' performance. It's possible that Sabrina talks a good game and fronts herself as being capable of much more than she can actually deliver. In short, she's a fraud and at a certain level she knows it. Her persona is therefore built on tenuous foundations and she will be on perpetual high alert for any threat to its maintenance...which makes her incredibly resistant to feedback and fearful of any assessment of her by others. Her development task remains the same: cultivate modesty and objectivity, greater awareness of others through opening herself to feedback, and learning to deliver feedback to others in a more constructive way.

TEAM PINNACLE (losing team)

Lynton's elimination this week stemmed largely from his over-reliance on data, information and logical, step-by-step process. In his exit interview he seems not to have learned the lesson: he states there is not a lot he would have done differently, says they made the best possible use of the tools and information available, but failed to talk about how he would correct the two major shortfalls: his failure to remember the clients' names(!) and the lack of engagement and energy in his "wooden" presentation to Ogilvy. It's likely that he thought his way was the best way, so despite claiming to have a "dream team" to work with, he insisted on delivering the pitch on his own. In the Boardroom his detached, non-emotional mask began to crack as he continually pursed his lips - a blatant microexpression that may have indicated anger/annoyance, disapproval/disgust, or impatience at not being able to speak, but in any event clearly demonstrated outwardly the emotional distress that he was unwilling to actually put into words.

Jon, meanwhile, was this week's target of Mr Bouris' war on "shrinking violet" behaviour and "fence-sitters" - which seems to be code for everyone who's not making a big noise about their own contribution. I'd agree that Jon seems ambivalent about his role and was too easily brushed aside by Gavin during the interviews - all the more reason for him to insist that some groundwork be set before tasks are undertaken so there's greater role clarity and even debate about how to proceed, before proceeding. So, more Foundation before the Force.

Sam meanwhile got positively manic and made good use of his creative side during the brainstorming session - which is, after all, what a brainstorming session is meant to be about - but then got some stick for being unfocussed. At present there is simultaneously a lot of goodwill towards him and doubts about his youth. That said, he stuck his hand up and took responsibility for an idea in the Boardroom, which earned him kudos from Mr Bouris since everyone else on Team Pinnacle was in prevarication/plausible deniability mode. In the weeks to come Sam needs to keep on being himself and continue to earn the respect of his team members by engaging with them in an energetic, authentic way - in other words, with Heart.


Real-World Application (RWA) #1: Head and Heart

Lynton and Sam offer good examples this week of the contrast between Head and Heart.

HEAD is about data, tasks and learning. It looks like this: get clear on the step-by-step actions, make resources available, allocate them efficiently and leverage them to move forward. Ensure good information flow, analyze data for patterns to apply and exploit. It's logical, procedural, rational and non-emotional.






HEART is about empathy, inclusion and relationships, creating a personal connection so that internal competition does not tear the team apart. Being smart about connecting with the team helps foster a sense of belonging for each team member. People don't work for companies or money - they work for people. As team leader, offering a sense of personal commitment will build authentic relationships between team members, who gladly go the extra mile for you...and for each other.

There's an old saying: "People don't care what you know, until they know that you care." With Sam it seems pretty clear that what you see is what you get - to use the phrase, he wears his Heart on his sleeve for all to see. On the other hand, Lynton's Head-strong efforts to dazzle with his marketing know-how and to put himself forward as the expert presenter during the pitch actually alienated him from team members. It also blinded him to the fact that a joint presentation would have been more compelling because it would draw on the diverse strengths of the team members, including Jon's input from his role as parent, Gavin's charm and easy way with people, Sam's energetic enthusiasm and Andrew's warmth and engagement.

Using only his Head and not his Heart, Lynton failed to engage either his team or the client, and paid the price. His exit interview shows that this lesson hasn't sunk in. Logically, his Head-based behaviour still makes rational sense to him. As yet, he hasn't developed the Heart-insight to understand where things went wrong. Opening himself to emotional and Heart-style engagement with others will therefore be his developmental task in his post-Apprentice career.

Of course both Head and Heart are necessary elements and each is an effective counterbalance to the other. We can get so focused on results that the human dimension, that of emotions and relationships, gets forgotten. Yet it is the central task of leadership to successfuly reincorporate exactly that dimension to to engage people in getting things done.

What does your team or organization do to ensure a good mix of both Head and Heart in decision-making, activities and interactions?

An excellent tool for reincorporating the human dimension, the Heart in an organization, is by enabling people to communicate more effectively by giving and receiving feedback.

Real-World Application (RWA) #2: Giving & Receiving Feedback

Giving feedback: The Affirm
This week Sabrina demonstrated the kind of feedback that many managers give: pointing out what's wrong, challenging decisions with a lot of "why" questions and generally putting the person at the receiving end on the back foot. This highly critical approach focused on the negatives will be interpreted by many people as a threat - and drive them into their limbic, emotionally reactive survival mode.

Rather than offering negative, destructive feedback, there's a tool that helps you to give constructive feedback aimed at a collaborative and mutually-agreeable outcome. Working on the basis that people work better when they are appreciated, a good approach is to Affirm the things you notice that are going well and the resources, skills, talents and attributes that a person has demonstrated.

At first this might seem like a pointless waste of time, just soft-stuff, hand-holding and not getting the point across. Or like those empty compliments that some managers lavish indiscriminately on team member - a load of sickly-sweet, nonspecific and insincere praise. But the Affirm is something else.

Good Affirms are:
Authentic and sincere
Specific and detailed
Relevant to the context

And...they feel really good both to the giver's brain (since it's linked to compassion) and the receiver's brain, since they help position the receiver to win the Battle inside their Brain. Good Affirms calm the knee-jerk, emotionally reactive limbic brain and invite the attention and involvement of the rational cortical brain, where the mental heavy-lifting takes place and whence people produce their most useful behaviour and activity. (Learn more here.)

Receiving feedback: Active Listening

Even if you're not being Affirmed, you will still need to receive feedback from others in order to learn, develop and grow. Scottish poet Robbie Burns wrote, "O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us." And he's right, we gain invaluable insight from the outside perspective that can only come from other people.

Assuming you've won the Battle inside your Brain and quieted the noise of your emotional reactivity, here are some good Active Listening habits to cultivate:

• Reassure/encourage - convey genuine interest, show you're paying attention, keep the person talking by occasionally saying: "I see..." "Yes..." "Say more about that..."
  
• Reflect/paraphrase - convey understanding by restating what the person has said, not necessarily word-for-word but as you've heard and understood it, sometimes taking a guess at the underlying feelings: "You feel that..." "I can imagine you would feel angry that"
  
• Restate/clarify - check that you have understood the speaker's intended message (NB: whether you agree with it or not!): "So if I understand you correctly, your idea is..." "In other words, you're saying..."
  
• Summarize - to highlight important facts, ideas, etc., review progress so far and establish basis for further discussion: "These seem to be your key ideas..." "Let me just check where we've got to so far..."
  

The opposite behaviours can be called listening stoppers:

• Denial - "No, that's not true." Also, body language like lip pursing, rolling eyes, ignoring comments.
  
• Counter-interrogation - responding with questions that attack, criticize or make false assumptions
  
• Offering counter-opinions - Rejecting the other person's point of view out of hand and substituting your own, "accurate" version: "Let me tell you what really happened!"

When team members can learn to give and receive feedback using Heart, it opens the channels to and engages the rational brain to better process the Head-based facts, data and information. A winning combination!

tmc can help you and your team members to give and receive feedback more constructively, interact collaboratively, and more productively deliver the results you need. To find out more - contact me.

Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.
.

Apprentice episode 2 preview, RWA: Conflict management

Summary: This second post in the series on The Apprentice Australia completes the review of episode 1 and offers a preview of what to watch for among the remaining 11 candidates in episode 2 (airing in Australia 21h30 Monday on Channel 9 - for those who missed it, you can watch episode 1 online here).

My previous post in this series argued that a successful team must strike a balance between what I call Role (taking the time to set the roles, goals and expectations at the outset) and Reward (driving forward to achieve those ends with practical action).

On The Apprentice, the drive for results in a stressful, time-limited setting, along with the cut-throat competitive nature of this show, strongly biases the team interactions in favour of fast action over setting clear expectations. In other words, for Force over Foundation.

Now that what Mr. Bouris labelled "shrinking violet" behaviour has been punished with week one's elimination of Jane, that will only increase the drive to more and faster actions.

Real-World Application - Managing Team Conflict

As a "reality" TV series The Apprentice is an artificial environment. In the real world of course people face just as many pressures: to hit the numbers, increase the billing, reduce costs, meet tough timelines or any number of other factors. The end result is the same bias for rapid action in a team.

This bias for rapid action often creates an environment full of people talking past one another and varied (and vying) expectations of the what, how, who and when within the teams. The result is widespread miscommunication and, rather than all pulling together in the same direction, each team runs the risk of devolving into a tug-of-war.

In episode 1 this clash of egos was already evident in the girls' team as Carmen and Mary-Anne butted heads straightaway, there was little consultation by the project leader and, rather than bringing up and resolving differences of opinion, there was a lot of muttered grumbles and second-guessing. These conflicts only came out belatedly in the Boardroom, where there was much finger-pointing and "blamestorming" to make the team's failure someone else's fault. By this stage it's already far too late to manage this conflict effectively.

In a real world team there may not be any Boardroom where team members can to have it out. Instead the conflict seeths and festers, becoming the "dead cat under the table" that everyone can smell, but no one talks about. This underlying conflict in a team is poisonous. More to the point: it has a real and negative effect on team productivity - and the bottom line.

Conflict scenarios produce threats (real and perceived) that trigger people's survival strategies. Once again it's the Battle inside your Brain, as the emotional limbic system takes hold and knee-jerk reactivity fuels the conflict to ever-greater intensity.


How do you manage conflict in your organization?

Effective conflict management in a team means:

• knowing your own survival strategy and hot buttons - those things that trigger an emotionally reactive, knee-jerk response - so you can effectively self-manage during crisis and high-pressure situations
  
• learn (or at least have a best-guess at) what your fellow team members' survival strategies and hot button issues are as well
• during team interactions, be mindful of these hot buttons and, respectful of their fast-acting and deeply instinctual nature, communicate and interact with each other in ways that minimize any potential triggers to an emotionally reactive, knee-jerk response
• when (not if!) despite all efforts people DO get triggered, ensure there's a way to handle the conflict quickly - one that's been agreed upon in advance and can be effectively deployed even in the heat of the moment
  

People are complex, adaptive beings and so, as with all situations where people are interacting, the process of conflict management too will be complex. Handily, there are ways to give yourself the advantage.

1. Learn the nine most common survival strategies that reliably predict the majority of emotional limbic behaviour (I presented the nine of them briefly toward the end of a previous post). This is not about pigeonholing people; quite different and unique individuals will, faced with the same stimulus, react in ways that are consistent enough to be grouped together as a survival strategy style. Use them a lens to view and better understand both your own behaviour that of others too.
   
   
2. Engage in a facilitated process in which each person can talk about their own survival strategy, what triggers them to reactive emotional behaviour, and how they want to be interacted with when they have been triggered. Using tools like the Pinch/Crunch model, this creates the foundation of an agreed way to manage conflict in the team when it happens. Done well, it actually encourages people to have a laugh about their own reactive behaviours, lightens the subject of conflict and removes any taboos and fears attached to discussing sensitive topic of conflict. It gets the "dead cat" out from under the table and helps clear the air!
   

To find out more about effective conflict management and how tmc can help your team or organization benefit from this Real World Application, contact me.


The remaining 11 on The Apprentice - what to watch for:

In what follows I adopt the perspective of what counsel I might offer to Mr. Bouris assuming his job was to develop people to their full capacity and invite them to realize the best in themselves, rather than (as is the avowed intention of the Apprentice format) finding reasons to fire one of them each week.

In the weeks to come, then, here's what to watch for as contestants' mettle is tested and their personality preferences and reactive styles come to the fore - as the Battle inside their Brains continues to be waged. I've also included thoughts on each contestant's likely triggers or hot buttons - the things that may provoke emotionally reactive behaviour as outlined above.

(Caveat: These represent my best-guesses based on what's been shown of them so far. I want to reiterate: people are complex, adaptive beings and, in keeping with my stated intention to avoid pigeonholing, I remain willing to modify my hypotheses on the availability of new data.)


Amy - Thus far Amy has been cool, calm, detached and analytical. She's likely to have an excellent mind for details and numbers and be slow to anger or feel provoked. Her gift is to fulfill the Auditor/Organizer function in a team and as project lead will demonstrate a Tactical leadership style. When it comes to task accomplishment her disciplined, objective approach will offer calmness and clarity to the team. On the people side, she may struggle with managing the relationships and personalities. The key to her success will therefore be to tap into her ability to see the best in people bring it out with encouragement and positive feedback. Her strong achievement focus may cause her to overcommit and set goals that cannot be delivered; if this happens she will find it very difficult to deal with failure. She's also admitted to being nervous around successful people and will feel anxious being questioned by those she secretly fears are better/smarter/more successful than she is. Triggers: failure of any kind - particularly not achieving goals, inactivity and slow pace, anything that distracts from achievement/performance focus, losing face/reputation or being overshadowed by others, put in position to fail, being blamed for poor work of others, not getting credit for work done, feeling like a fraud.

Andrew "Morello" - The project lead for the boys in episode one was in his element generating sales, yet he lost his first pitch to the girls because his approach seemed less focused on tangible results and more on being personable - essentially "hire me, I'm a good bloke and I'll do right by you." Andrew needs to tap into his gift to be a Practical Problem Solver with a Democratic leadership style. In weeks to come he must show substance behind the warm personality. He may fall down on more strategic tasks if he fails to channel his abundant energy and good cheer into productive output. Triggers: dislikes difficult situations or painful feelings, mundane tasks and constraints or limitations, feeling dismissed or not taken seriously, unjust criticism.

Blake - Did not hear much from this quarter in week one either, but at first glance Blake seems entrepreneurial, happy to get stuck in and highly focused on results and winning. His gift could be the Driver/Completer role, energizing the team with a Commanding/Coercive leadership style. He is by times energetic and other moments reserved and withdrawn so I think that how he manages the energy levels of his emotions will be worth watching. Triggers: being left out, ignored, told what to do, unsupported, being taken advantage of, distruptions to group harmony, rudeness in others, overt hostility and confrontation - also potentially abuses of authority, pressure, feeling helpless/out of control.

Carmen - I wrote a fair bit about Carmen in my last post and I think what to watch now is how she applies the experiences of episode one and whether she tempers her behaviour in team interactions. Mr. Bouris seems to have a lot of faith in her ability to deliver results. The question now is whether she can do so as a productive member of a team.

Gavin - Suave and smooth, Gavin is the consummate charmer and diplomat. His natural focus is on people and relationships and his gift as Promoter/Strategist is to put the right people in place to get the job done with an Affiliative leadership style. The intangible nature of these vital "soft" skills mean that he risks being in charge of successful projects in which he's well liked, gets results...but at the end of the day cannot tell Mr Bouris in hard practical terms what exactly he's done to help make it a success. Like Amy, he's also at risk of overpromising and failing to deliver; such a threat to his reputation could move him to ill-considered action. Triggers: failure of any kind - particularly not achieving goals, inactivity and slow pace, anything that distracts from achievement/performance focus, losing face/reputation or being overshadowed by others, put in position to fail, being blamed for poor work of others, not getting credit for work done, feeling like a fraud.

Heather From the outset Heather has used words like ethical and integrity so we know there's a strong focus there. Her gift is to be the Explorer/Motivator with a Mentoring leadership style. Her passion, discipline and dependability will mean she can put in hard work and model the integrity and high standards she holds so dear. This will, in turn, provide a clear sense of mission and straight dealing between team members. As with Andrew, the challenge will be for her to keep her energy focused and face difficult situations without getting thrown off course. If she does get triggered, watch for her to flip into quite punitive behaviour with a clear expectation of compliance with her rules for conduct. Triggers: dislikes difficult situations or painful feelings, mundane tasks and constraints or limitations, feeling dismissed or not taken seriously, unjust criticism - also, blaming/criticism, violations of team norms, lack of follow-through, lack of commitment (by her standards), deception and lack of integrity.

Jon - Probably the quietest team member so far, look to Jon to deploy his gifts as Visionary Planner with an Authoritative/Visionary leadership style. His will be a solid presence offering the team clear sense of direction in the pursuit of the vision's end goal, a calm certainty about the outcome and will fosters stability and security even in the face of widespread and disruptive change. He'll work well with Gavin and Sam and possibly Sabrina; where it could fall over is if there's disagreement about the norms or there's excessive discord or disorder. Then Jon may revert to quite an inflexible adherence to the original plan even though circumstances have shifted, leaving the team vulnerable and unprepared to handle the new situation. Like the recently-departed Jane, Jon is also be maladroit in playing Boardroom politics and may get ambushed. Triggers: mistakes being made, blaming/criticism, violations of team norms, lack of follow-through, lack of commitment (by his standards), deception and lack of integrity.

Lynton - In the first boys' team meeting Lynton took charge straight off, coming up with the name Pinnacle and essentially appointing Andrew as team leader. This is characteristic of the Explorer/Motivator's gift, stepping in to set the course and foster confidence in the chosen direction with a Mentoring leadership style. His demeanour is otherwise highly detached, however, and he may unwittingly put people off by seeming aloof, distant and cold. This directive but distant approach may make it difficult to foster a connection with others - leaving him to fend for himself when the knives come out in the Boardroom. If he is able to get closer to others he could be a quite capable leader, but his aversion to conflict (and presumably to strongly-expressed emotions) may make that difficult for him to do. Pushed too far, he will become curt, vengeful and ruthless. Triggers: strong feelings especially fear, intrusive/demanding people or situations, being surprised, dishonesty, out of control situations, overwhelming tasks, feeling inadequate.

Mary-Anne We heard the least from Mary-Anne on the girls' team after she was shut down peremptorily by Carmen during the first team meeting. Mary-Anne's likely to shine as a Creative Change Agent and her Pacesetting leadership style will depend on getting quick results from a highly motivated and competent team. Lacking team experience from her job, to get this to happen she will need to rein in her high-energy competitive nature to win people over rather than confronting them. Her intolerance for what she perceives as incompetence may also be a significant trigger resulting in punitive behaviour, even bullying. The early clash with Carmen (who shares a similar disposition) is a sign of things to come. Triggers: injustice, skirting the issues, others not taking responsibility for their behaviour, being blindsided, lack of truthfulness, feeling weak/vulnerable/uncertain/dependent, losing regard of people she respects.

Sabrina Beautiful and smart, Sabrina has so far demonstrated a highly advanced sense of her own self-worth, bordering on narcissism. Her forceful confidence bowls others over, as when she stated that Eventus should be the team name as it's "Latin for success." In fact it's not (except in the most obscure usage of it) and while no one could have known this, it is an example of how easily she can persuade others to do the wrong thing. Sabrina more than anyone else will react strongly to any perceived threat to her reputation and self-image. If her smiling and charming exterior starts to crack, expect to see wildly erratic emotional reactions from her and a willingness to stick the knives in anyone and everyone else to ensure her own survival. At this point it's so hard to get past the facade she's presented that I can't make any prediction of her likely team role gift and leadership style. I agree with Mr. Bouris' assessment: there's a risk she'll seem to be "All show, no go". Whatever happens, to be a serious contender she'll need to get over herself and focus her undeniable talent and intelligence on being a productive member of the team - rather than continually self-referencing every situation with "me, me, me". Triggers: failure of any kind - particularly not achieving goals, inactivity and slow pace, anything that distracts from achievement/performance focus, losing face/reputation or being overshadowed by others, put in position to fail, being blamed for poor work of others, not getting credit for work done, feeling like a fraud.

Sam - Sam is thus far a largely unknown quantity. What we have heard, apart from the teenage bravado and buzzwords, has focused on the team and people working together. Sam's gift is therefore likely to be a Promoter/Strategist, one who brings people together with an Affiliative leadership style. Sam also seems very rules-focused and will tend either, as in week one, to readily comply with the views of more forceful team members or to act strongly to enforce the rules and create order. Rule-enforcing behaviour like this will cause his perspective to narrow and create blindspots that may prevent him from tapping into his natural gifts, so how he manages challenges to his conception of the rules and how things should be will be something to watch. Triggers: mistakes being made, blaming/criticism, violations of team norms, lack of follow-through, lack of commitment (by his standards), deception and lack of integrity.

Enjoy the show, look for more analysis and insight soon!

Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.
.