The latest from David:

We had an interesting session on the subject of common sense at the Growing for Gold event in York.  In the leadership workshop, we were discussing why some managers find it hard to trust and to delegate to the people who work for them. There were many reasons that the group came up with. Some of them valid and some of them not but all, we agreed, related to the belief that managers had about the people they needed to delegate to. If I was to summarise this belief in one sentence it would be, ‘I would delegate more but my team don’t have enough common sense and they might make a mistake.’  Ok, this was not said word for word but it sums up the direction of the conversation. Read the rest of this entry »

Lucy explores a question which comes up a lot around these parts

I was running a presentation past the bunch recently to get their feedback. The presentation was to be used to demonstrate why we’re quite unique in what we do. At the end, the most valuable feedback was, “It still doesn’t actually tell me what Rambutan does.” Read the rest of this entry »

Some interesting thoughts from David

If you are my boss and you want me to do something new then consider this. You’ll get a better response if you can tell me ‘what’ you want me to do as opposed to what’ you want me to do and ‘how’ you want me to do it. Why? Well because if you leave me to figure the second part out I’ll be more engaged with the task. I might not get it right first time or do it the way that you would but I’ll grow as a result and like you more. Sometimes managing people can feel a bit like herding jellyfish (difficult to get everyone moving in the same direction and it can sting quite a bit) and this can cause managers to over-manage (or tell people ‘what’ and ‘how’) to get things done. Be warned…resist the temptation…you may be surprised how well engaged jellyfish*¹ perform.

 *¹ this is probably overuse of a fishy metaphor which you should never^*2 do   

^*2 unless of course you are Pike Place market in Seattle in which case ‘fill your boots’

Lucy recaps the day Rambutan spent at the University of York with Ben Hun-Davis, Growing for Gold.

Last Thursday saw a rare appearance of the whole Rambutan bunch at the same place at the same time. Having been invited by the University of York to help them showcase their new Ron Cooke Hub, we designed and ran some taster session workshops that would allow visitors to see the Hub in an innovative way and get some Rambutan refreshment too.

Following a fascinating opening talk by our very own Olympic gold medallist, Ben, we offered workshops on leadership, presenting, time management and listening; all vital business skills and all delivered in 30 minutes (time is money as they say!). In true Rambutan fashion the style of the workshops was interactive and memorable. We got some amazing feedback, summed up nicely by one attendee who commented: “Very inspiring. Fabulous!”

We’d like to thank the University for asking us along. We had a great day!

Craig recently had the most amazing experience…

I was asked to be involved with a local school to help their students learn more about developing their social awareness and business behaviours to help them now, and when they leave school.

Sounds exciting? Well, the class I supported were all involved in creating their own political party, policies and leader in preparation for a live ‘Dimbleby’ style debate against six other classes in order to get their party into power for the school by the close of the day.

The children were incredible, confident, tenacious, intelligent, excited, engaged and (mostly) focussed.

One student stood out from the rest. At the start of the day she was very quiet and very shy but as the day progressed she started joining in the fun. Finally one of her class mates said “you should be our Prime Minister, you’re great at being heard”.

The girl beamed and stood for election. She was outstanding, a real guru – delivering powerful messages to a large group of people. I’ve never witnessed someone so young suddenly have so much confidence, belief and desire delivering a ‘speech’. She was amazing, her class mates listened to every word she had to say and when she delivered the speech to the other parties and potential voters she got a huge round of applause.

Sometimes all it takes is one statement of goodness to unlock someone to greatness. Who are you going to try that on today?

Lance saw this quote recently;

If you want to build a boat, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It reminded him of the importance of focusing on the objective rather than the process.

David read an article by European Leaders on the link between motivation and communication on the Personnel Today website.

From a business perspective I guess that all communication and HR professionals will say ‘yep…already knew that’ but I wonder what we’d see if when reading the article we took out ‘company’ and added in ‘country’. Could you say that you know your country’s vision and values and how you fit in? What if they surveyed the thousands of people who brought fear to our streets and shame on our country over the last week? Not, repeat NOT, looking for excuses or someone to blame here. Theft and violence are not acceptable and I’m relieved at the speed at which offenders are being brought to justice, but when the dust has settled and the enquiry gets underway surely this is something that we should consider as a country. What do you think?

Here are the highlights of the article:
Lack of communication between senior managers and their wider workforce is leading to low motivation among staff, according to research published today.
The survey, by people development company European Leaders, found that more than two-thirds (68%) of respondents said that they fail to understand their company’s vision, leading to a lack of motivation and reduced productivity. In addition to this, almost two-thirds (64%) of respondents claimed that they could, and would, work much more efficiently with better motivation.

Currently, less than one-fifth (18 %) of respondents view the business they work for as a good organisation and, as a result, only one-third (36%) describe themselves as working to their full potential.

Respondents to the survey cited strong management as being crucial to building motivation among employees.

Ashley Ward, director of European Leaders, said, “It’s widely accepted that people performance is the biggest influence in business performance, yet, as a nation, we’re still not doing enough. If you look at the UK’s best companies to work for, their focus on company values and employee engagement is right at the top of their agenda.
“The fact that people want to be more involved in their work and their company shows they think about their employer’s business and care about how they’re managed. They have more to give and opening the minds of management to fresh ideas can release a huge amount of energy and skill from the workforce, benefiting the business bottom line as well as the employees as they become more passionate about the organisation they work in. A seemingly negligible investment can get teams much closer to their full potential performance, resulting in a happier workforce and significant financial benefits.”

Latest thoughts from David:

Take a moment to reflect on how you operate as a leader and the processes and checks that you’re the custodian of. What does it all say about the people you employ? One of my biggest reflections from when I had a proper job*1 was when I realised that I actually employed hard working, highly intelligent and dedicated adults and yet some of what I did and some of the checks I put in place would have suggested that I employed lazy, adolescent monkeys.

Ok this is a bit extreme but if you are finding yourself micromanaging, checking up on people and generally walking round with a belief that ‘if you want a job doing right you had better do it yourself’ then there’s probably something wrong with your recruitment and people development processes. You’re also probably working too hard and not being as effective as you could be as a result. So here’s your wake-up call (actually it’s a mantra for when you wake). Before going into the office each day say to yourself, ‘My goodness I employ adults!’ You’ll be amazed at the results and will need to figure out what to do with all your spare time.

*1defined thus: the requirement to be somewhere on a regular basis where you wouldn’t be at all if you won the Lotto*2 jackpot
*2 no I haven’t won as I don’t play so no requests for random handouts please – the key word is ‘requirement’ not ‘Lotto’; as in a proper job has requirements whereas my job has choices

The latest blog from David:

I have always believed that the relationship between worker and manager is an absolutely critical driver of engagement, morale, productivity etc. but have never heard this articulated so brilliantly as in the  phrase ‘people don’t leave companies…they leave their boss’.

Amazing when I reflect on my career, because I have put up with a whole lot (poor brand reputation, salary, working conditions, etc.) when my boss was a good one. Conversely, I left the best two companies (in terms of brand, etc.) that I have worked for because my line manager was ‘less than the most effective leader’; (I could have said this in four letters at the time but the therapy has helped).

It’s definitely true for me that I ‘left’ my boss and not the company…even though I had ‘joined’ a company and not a boss. Pretty obvious stuff really but I still see far too much effort to improve employee engagement being misdirected away from the crux of that matter. So review your plans and make sure that the skills and behaviours of the people who manage other people in your organisation are always where the lion’s share of the effort is directed.

Craig was chatting with a friend recently who was telling him about a belief he had of himself; a negative belief that was restricting him from feeling great and being the best person that he could be.

It turned into a mini coffee-coaching chat; you know the type where you chat and then find yourself asking some well placed questions to help the other person.

As we were chatting I asked my friend how he knew this perception existed and what evidence he had to support it?

It then got really intriguing…

The evidence was based on one piece of poorly delivered feedback and nothing else. He’d held onto that feedback more than all the positive examples he had received.

We chatted and I asked him to give me examples of when he demonstrated a ‘negative perception’ and he couldn’t give any.

After some reflection, he was genuinely pleased and felt better.

Just think about it, how many of us do the same?

One person’s perception does not need to be your reality…unless you want it to be; your choice.