SHIFT HAPPENS

“If we don’t shift our intention, direction and action we will end up where we are headed”

SHIFT HAPPENS.  So… start accepting it. Let go of trying to stop the change or slow it down. There are likely to be 7 billion other similar stories just like yours, they just have different characters and plots but the same underlying message. Everyone you talk to is sick of change.  One approach is to be more effective rather than be affected by it. 

Are you working in a stuck or non-stuck environment?    If not….get yourself into a Teflon Team.  Stop sticking to old habits, old processes, old teams, old whining and shift.   There is a lot of bad press around the economy, job cuts, poverty, famine and war.  It is serious, so get serious and SHIFT into gear.  

Use all the gears to leverage your mindset and workplace to where it needs to shift. 

In many facilitation exercises we talk about the current and future state, the important bits are in the middle…”the action state”…or the “shifting state.”  The shifting state delivers targeted action, lots of it and regularly. Guess what? SHIFT happens.  Most if it starts within the mind then shifts into behaviour.

 “SHIFTING” is what I coined some time ago.  It’s a deliberate process of shifting thoughts, behaviours, attitudes to develop a more adaptable, resilient and optimistic view in a shifting world.  It’s a holistic process that deals with complex systems and aims to understand and respond to them with more agility and sustainability. 

STRAINING…..Have you noticed how workplaces over-process, over-engineer, over-produce, over-change and over strain?  It’s time to get over it…don’t you think? 

UNDERSTANDING YOUR SHIFT

Whenever we change one type of behaviour or situation, we are losing as well as gaining something.  In order to sustain real and lasting change in the workplace we need to change ourselves first.  Everyone can shift.  Shifting is challenging and requires effort but not straining.  The juggling act is “knowing,” that is, knowing not to get caught up in everyone’s emergency, urgency or dramas.  Of course we must balance what’s important and necessary. How you view or feel about a situation is always your choice. 

So…SHIFT YOURSELF to think and do what matters most.  Be more effective, be lateral, be creative, be a SHIFTER.  Don’t get caught up in the change, we have limited influence and control over what people decide to change in the workplace but we can shift our focus.


Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -12      

Strengthen  Resilience in Change and Get Inspiring Results

Have you noticed how many workplaces struggle with implementing change correctly. Unfortunately this impacts on the bottom line, customer service and workplace culture.

Dealing with resistance to change will be one of your greatest barriers and greatest successes. 

Research repeatedly tells us that change initiatives fail due to poor planning and most of all poor change sponsorship. 

Resilience in the knowledge worker economy is key to your change management success.

Our company provides both consultancy and faciliation to assist organisational and workplace change programs. 

Lessons Learned

Some of the most common errors that I have found when consulting in transforming teams, services and an organisation are that they have:

• Allowed too much complacency, 
  
• Failed to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition,
  
• Underestimated the power of vision, 
  
• Under communicated the vision by a factor of 10x-100x, 
  
• Permitted obstacles to block the new vision,
  
• Failed to create short-term wins, 
  
• Declared victory too soon, 
  
• Neglected to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture.  
  

Critical Success Factors  in Change Management Process

Here are my thoughts on the critical success factors in managing your organisational change, trust me, so many people fail to use a process.  At least start with a process by addressing these key issues:

• Define the purpose
  
• Prepare a business case and project plan
  
• Define the role of the sponsor/s
• Manage human resource and industrial relations issues
• Establish consultation and communication processes
• Conduct a stakeholder analysis
• Acquire and develop change agent skills
• Identify and develop plans for managing risks/threats
• Develop evaluation strategies

Strengthen your individual and team resilience, through partnering with us...

We improve your change initiatives providing options to suit you including:

• practical change management training
• change management planning
• change management implementation
• change management coaching
• change management tools, assessments, templates and resources
• supporting teams in transition
• assisting leadership transform the business.

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -12   

Beware Executive Coaching is a Business Nightmare, Protect your Investment 

On a Google search 12 March 2012 I searched on the following terms and this is what I found...

Executive Coaching Training 17,400,000 results
Executive Coaching 7,910,000 results Worldwide
Executive Coaching 4,880,000 results Australia

Good luck everyone, me included….

I’ll tell you why.  I’ll also share some insights with you into the future of how to avoid the traps of hiring coaching services and coaching training.  If you’re hiring coaching services or a coach please send me questions, I’ll try and answer them to protect your investment and business.   I’ll even review proposals and programs. 

I started my own coaching and facilitation business in 2007.  I also provided team development programs as a smaller part of my business structure to increase my research base for team coaching.  In the 5 years I’ve seen an enormous shift to coach training, coaching services and corporate areas providing what seems to be the same service.  I commend them for getting up to speed with latest trends in people and business performance.    

When I finished an accredited program in the Australian education sector, (not an online US course), I was not fully prepared for executive coaching or business coaching.  When I questioned other coaches who had undergone coaching certification through big US training programs, neither were they.  There has been no tertiary sector degree course offered in Business Coaching.  However, Life coaching which has been cleverly marketed for just over decade.   Life Coaching quickly morphed into business and executive coaching. Why? More of your money…...  

Oh, it reeked of fake and phoney start-ups…. Scary and I wondered what the bleep….I had got myself into.  

I aspired to being one of the best in the industry and started consulting with University of Sydney to find out more to progress the professional status.   It was clear coaching, business coaching and coaching psychology was changing rapidly.  It was becoming a free for all approach and here we remain today.

As a result in 2008 -09, I undertook a review of training schools through direct contact and also a meta-analysis of the literature from business, organisational psychology, organisational development, management, vocational education and coaching.  My business needed a proven scientific basis.  I came from a professional management and clinical background where everything needs to be proven by research and opinion was never entertained.

In 2009 -10, I conducted and independent business review of a government panel of coaching providers.  Of the panel of providers credentialed or certified coaches were less than 10%, charging out rates from $250 - $695 per hour.  Wow… I was shocked to think our public taxes could be used so recklessly.

Within those 2 years I developed the evidence based framework Australia Coaching Excellence Framework (ECEF).  

ECEF was developed for Australian corporate, small business and not for profit sector.  Have you noticed how many coaching programs use US or overseas based frameworks?   Just check whatever you choose aligns to your business structure.  

ECEF was developed as a scalable, replicable, transferable and measurable model to whatever organisation that you worked in. 

Today in 2012, the Australian coaching industry is saturated with a lack of research, standardisation, rigorous governance and quality control.  It is an unregulated industry.  It is concerning that there are no state or national registration boards.  

Let’s face it you wouldn’t go and get an unlicensed electrician come in and wire up your house.  And, you wouldn’t send your child to school to be taught by a non-registered teacher.   

If you were an accountant, physiotherapist, teacher, nurse, psychologist or architect you will be practising under tight controls of regulation, tertiary education, legislation and competency frameworks to protect the public and business sector. 

Today, 2 years later as I surf the web I sense that the business perception of coaching is still a fad and business owners are wary of HR, trainers and consultants.   I somewhat agree with their reticence and why the perception has come about. 

Risk for your business

My concern for you is that the perception is likely to be around for some years unless the industry is radically regulated.   We have many international councils, federations and such as International Coaching Federation, European Coaching Federation and a plethora of University Business and Management Schools and small training providers running coaching programs etc. scrambling for your business dollar.  

Who is protecting your business from rogue coaching organisations and rogue coaches?

Bottom line folks, executive or management coaching is not the silver bullet alleged to be.  Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.  Coaching can and does work.   On the flipside it also has its place and if not used correctly has no benefit at all.    

Coaching is one link in your business performance process.  

So why do I blog about it?  

Well times are changing. The corporate world and small business needs guidance and protection.  I’ve sat back and watched and seen the lack of ROI.  Although you can be credentialed, and certified, I’ll be honest have a look at the ICF website it’s pretty basic, and you can still be certified and practice using non-standardised practices. 

There is no watch dog in the industry…. Enter at your own risk and beware of the dogs

Okay so what now?

Sorry to be killjoy at my own party?  Well what it means to you is that many consultants, facilitators, trainers now call themselves coaches or have coaching programs to offer.  It means you have more risk to manage.  It won’t change, it will grow, so get smart when you’re hiring.  Find out from someone who can provide the risk management and protect your coaching investment. 

We are so concerned about the risk to businesses that our business provides a range of services to protect your investment into coaching.

Protect your Coaching Investment 

Our Consultancy Services include:

1.      Qualifying prospective coaches and organisations to protect your investment
2.      Acting on your behalf and risk stratifying coaching engagements
3.      Assisting you select and negotiate your coaching services and fees
4.      Assessing the quality, rigour and value of coaching training services that you are 
         considering
5.      Reviewing the performance of the coach/s to ensure they deliver on agreed performance 
         targets
6.      Reviewing, auditing and assessing breaches of professional conduct and ethics

I remain positive that coaching is a process to bring about performance. Don’t to get me wrong. It has enormous benefits.  Just get the right service.

Our company continues to provide coaching services to key clients.   We select our clients just like they select us.  Why, because we see it as business partnership not to be entered into lightly.

All the best on your search. Remember not everyone needs a coach, but they can perform better with one….

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -12  

Inspiring Excellence.... Achieving Bottom Line Results

I was asked via the blog to make more resources available on Quality.   What a huge task.  So I’m making an effort this week to do so with this months blog. I hope that you find it useful.   Tell me if you do or if you don’t.  l’ll start from simple then move to complex as the blog grows. So make sure you subscribe to rss feeds or the newsletter.

Case Study 2012, Inspiring Results

In our company we operate business processes to deliver quality.  That is, the customer gets what the customer needs based on their business requirements and based on what they perceive value to be.

I’ll be transparent and start off with the basics. I have a background as Quality Manager managing healthcare accreditation, service delivery, innovation and a long background in the human service industry.  

Quality is the core to our success. Our mantra is, less is more.  Our business is not going to be all things to all customers. That’s fine, it’s just not the way we do business. We will take a share of business out there and service you, our customer to the quality you expect.  We all have a choice, that’s the one we made.

What makes sense to our business is that our business is like a wheel of the car.

Sometimes it moves slow, other times not all and sometimes very quickly.  I accept that it’s my responsibility as the driver.  Our business wheel has defined spokes.  Imagine a wheel on your car.  Essentially the wheel moves forward when the engine is running and fuelled.  Yes I know… wheels can go backwards, I know.  That’s not the direction our gears are in.  Central to the wheel is the business engine.

I’ll be truthfully honest, the whole car needs tune ups and servicing to keep in order. How far between tune ups is depending on driving conditions and so on…

So, yes…our business gets regular tune ups, check-ups, and inspections.   The wheels need balancing, aligning and tyres need changing.

Our business wheel has four major components.

1.      Commitment to excellence
2.      Build a culture around service
3.      Business principles
4.      Measurement of  the important things

Our company  has 12 principles or spokes we consider important to delivering a quality business, they are our enablers:

1.      Focus on customer and employee satisfaction

2.      Create and develop leaders and employees

3.      Build and enable individual accountability

4.      Align behaviours and attitudes with goals and values

5.      Communicate at all levels, timely, effectively  and appropriately

6.      Recognise and reward success continuously

7.      Connect, share, learn, and improve continuously

8.      Innovate to make a difference by helping others succeed in their goals

9.      Research and develop new ideas to provide the best evidence based services

10.   Deliver fair, equitable and ethical services

11.   Provide socially and environmentally responsible services

12.   Deliver sustainable solutions and services

Our company focuses on Performance Results, we focus on 6 key areas

1. Service
   
2. Quality
   
3. People
   
4. Finance
   
5. Growth
   
6. Innovation
   

Central to our business is the fundamental purpose of being in business, to serve other businesses.

Core to our business is our engine, that is... it is maintained and fuelled by 4 key drivers

1. Meaning
   
2. Purpose
   
3. Motivation
   
4. Autonomy
   

Those who understand quality get what the customer and employee really wants.

Coaching challenge

1. Who in the organisational leadership is not focussing on quality?
   
2. What is being done about that?
   
3. If they did focus on quality what might happen?
   
4. How can you positively influence a better outcome?
   
5. When will you do that?
   

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -12  

4 Irrefutable Facts about Motivation

I’m having a download but it’s to help you…trust me.. it will motivate you to think differently about work and life….   

After consulting with a client I was reminded by the impact of another leader’s motivation.  This leader was indoctrinated in a culture of hierarchy and glass ceilings. This hierarchy used power of the stick and carrot.  

There have been many occasions where I have been asked to assist managers with a low performing employee. I have in the past reluctantly and sometimes thought it's too far gone but organisations are often keen to assist their staff.  That’s a positive!!!  

One of the biggest problems is we still have a number of leaders/managers working in the last century paradigm of carrot and stick mentality. It’s rife... have you noticed it?

Let's face it, people are not donkeys... although some might beg to differ, there are some stubborn people out there.....know anyone?

The carrot and stick mentality paradigm exists in organisational culture today both overtly and covertly.  Nevertheless after working two years with an organisation I had discussions about recommending a performance framework (ahhh, the one they didn't even have!!!) to a transformational framework and employee engagement framework.  This leader just didn't get it.  It was about balance sheets. 

Guess what I got ????? I got the stick across the backside and that was my last assignment in that organisation.  I was glad..... It was no good me transforming people on the ground if the head honcho used last century behaviours in a modern world.  That organisation still has ongoing issues with retention and recruitment.

Carrot and stick motivation, you are a donkey if you really believe it works 

It's short term and so will be your business. What you sow is what you get, be careful what carrot seeds you sow……So I’m taking you to the new focus.  

Your Motivation “Operating System, Donkey 1.0. Needs an Urgent Upgrade to Transform 1.0

So what will Transform 1.0 offer new users?  Transform 1.0 is a metaphor…okay… stay with me. Read on….It simply offers new understanding based on research that shows the gap between motivation and business needs. The old version Donkey 1.0 does not work well with new browsers. 


Questions for You or other send them to them to the blog...

#1 What drives any of us to perform at our best? 
     Is it money, fear of punishment, reward or is it something more than that?

The secret to high performance and satisfaction at work and at home is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.  

There is mismatch between what science knows and what business does and how that affects every aspect of life. While carrots and sticks worked successfully in the twentieth century, that’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. Do you agree or disagree?

Four elements of true motivation 
In my research into motivation there are four elements of true motivation

1. Autonomy
   
2. Mastery
   
3. Purpose
   
4. Meaning
   

If you are an organisation or small business or an individual reading this and you need to know more about motivation then Inspiring Results can help you. I’ll know if you’re motivated because you may call or email me. Transform your work and how you live.

Old management techniques are like using an old software system for your computer, it's slow, unresponsive, and doesn’t work with new programs.  Motivation is the same.  We have decades of science that shows the way. This approach has four essential elements:

1. Autonomy, the desire to direct our own lives

2. Mastery, the urge to get better and better at something that matters

3. Purpose, the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

4. Meaning, Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a secondary
                  rationalisation of instinctual drives. (Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning,1959)

Now…Imagine a workplace environment where leadership mandates that all senior managers or managers must report on their key performance targets ensuring that their staff are increasing their autonomy, mastery, meaning and purpose at work.  “Are you serious?”… “You bet that I am.”  That would be kind of fun.....it would get us all talking that's for sure.

Imagine if all staff were appraised not only on their technical roles and abilities at work but also on their work key performance indicators such as autonomy, mastery, meaning and purpose.

7 Coaching Challenges... are you motivated yet???

1. How autonomous are you in your current role in your work environment? 
   
2. How much meaning do you personally get from your current work environment?
   
3. How much purpose do you feel about you current work environment??
   
4. How effective are you mastering the key areas of your work or personal life?
   

If you manage people then answer these questions.

1. Who in the team could you give more autonomy to?
   
2. Who in your team could you ensure are mastering key areas of their work performance?
   
3. Who in your team have you had an in-depth discussion about their sense of meaning and purpose in relation to their work?
   

It's obvious, it will be easier for some businesses to keep their heads in the corporate sand as a way out of the complexities of motivation. In the long run, however, I believe that those businesses that stand by their people will have that goodwill returned many times over.

Keep motivated. It’s not easy sometimes, but it’s harder if you don’t…one day at a time... 

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -12  

Small Business Lean Initiative has Sights on Leaning International Industry Leaders

I’m posting a quick message about the power of Lean Thinking and how I’m helping a small specialised business going lean in their own processes, automating wherever they can and also aiming to lean an international peak body to improve efficiencies in quality of service. I am unable share any commercial details. That’s business, but I will share some insights with you which I believe are helpful.

It goes like this.... I was consulting with a client today and we were discussing their proposal that was being presented to an international agency. This proposal if accepted will transform a performance culture, best practice and quality standards internationally. This result will revolutionise a quality control industry and insure its future sustainability.

Without saying too much, leaning the process will essentially transform out-dated existing quality improvement systems.  It has taken the new and younger blood to ask questions…. the tough questions of ….“Why do it this way, couldn’t we do it better, here is the alternative, these are the benefits, here is a new process, can we test it?”   

The challenge is the proposal has to be accepted by an international committee.  I ‘Il keep you posted in the year ahead how we get ahead.

Lean is a key strategy, but don’t be fooled in to using it alone without all your other business processes.  

When you Lean one process, it is likely that downstream might need reviewing as well. Lean needs to go enterprise wide for real benefit.  I've seen it fail miserably in some departments like healthcare because one department does not lean all areas involved with the client journey.  Additionally, not all staff are adequately engaged. Generally governance from the top is simply lacking.

One popular misconception is that lean is suited only for manufacturing. Not true. I’ve seen it used in small business, manufacturing, IT, HR, importing and complex environments like healthcare. I see Lean principles used widely in the biggest retail giant in the world. Just look at E-bay. At E-bay it’s an automated lean machine generating more site searches than Google in 2012.  

Lean can be tailored and applied in every business and every process. It even applies in my household. Although the 5S techniques could do with some improving in the kids bedrooms, and okay….the garden shed to.   Yes, I’m striving for perfection, it's a continuous improvement journey.

Lean is not a tactic or a cost reduction program, it’s a by-product of changing the business culture of thinking and acting as an entire organization.  It has many proven quality improvement processes backing it.

Three takeaways today.  Purpose, Process, People

If you are thinking more into Lean Thinking read the authors Womack and Jones, Lean Enterprise, 2nd Edition.  It’s a useful book.  The authors note that managers and executives that embarked on Lean transformations think about three fundamental business issues that should guide the transformation of the entire organization:

Purpose: What customer problems will the business solve to achieve its own purpose of prospering?

Process: How will the business assess each major value stream to make sure each step is valuable, capable, available, adequate, flexible, and that all the steps are linked by flow, pull, and levelling?

People: How can the business insure that every important process has someone responsible for continually evaluating that value stream in terms of business purpose and lean process? How can everyone engaging with or in lean terms (touching) the value stream be actively engaged in operating it correctly and continually improving it?

Lean needs to be tailored.  The best way to experience it is to have a short workshop facilitated in workplace with your work processes. With you we will map your processes, look at bottle necks, queues, delays and so on.  Then take it from there.

Mapping the journey or process is amazing. It’s like “Learning to See” how you do things in business. It’s an eye opener and you may go away scratching your head asking, “what the… why do we do that, it doesn’t make sense.”  Remember many processes are inherited and never really planned or evaluated. Here is your opportunity to break the cycle. Add value… that’s your job.

We have a team of Lean experts who can provide customized training. One on one, or in small groups.  Our Lean approach is a systems approach.  Lean combined with coaching, facilitation, good team management, business excellence and good governance is required.

Our business is Inspiring Results in your business. 

The approach to Lean is it’s a transformational process. That seems to resonate better with clients.  They get it, they know something is going to happen, it has an emotion attached to it and it provides an image of a better future.  Feel free to discuss how we can help your organisation big or small. We can all improve. 

Also, if you interested in joining our Lean Team please contact me though this site. 

If nothing changes, then nothing changes.


Journey well, 
Matt Cartwright
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -12