Today it’s been the first day I have done a proper coaching session since I started preparing myself to become a certified executive coach. My coachee, a colleague, has indeed helped me extremely on the initial phase, as he already had pretty clear what he wanted as his objective for the whole coaching process.

Every coaching process (be it a life coaching session or a business or executive coaching one) begins setting the objective of the person who is requesting the process. Some of them will come with absolute no idea of what they want to improve, but they know there is something they are not quite happy with, otherwise they wouldn’t be coming to you,  and so it is your task to make your client find out and clarify his thoughts to set up a goal to reach. It is the “G” (for Goal) of the GROW process I may talk about later on another post.

So the session has gone on for a couple of hours till we have clearly define the GOAL with all its ramifications, putting down the priorities and defining what will be our working line. I was insisting on going over and over again on his predetermined goal to find out if there was something below, hidden, that could be an even bigger goal or previous goal we should work with. But this was entering a dangerous field, my coachee’s past, and that was a line he did not want to cross.

I, as a coach, neither had to make him cross that line. A coach is normally not a therapist ( I agree there is therapeutic coaching, but this is not my case), I should not be interested in the past but on the present situation, working to go to a future where a detailed goal has been achieved, but I could not avoid it asking questions thinking there was something we were missing. I got an attention point from my client. Had it be a real paying session, that client may have not come to a second encounter. So I need to keep it in mind: a coach helps a client set up an objective, works with the present reality to move towards its objective but allows the coachee take the lead and set the boundaries of where to go, not the other way around. Nice lesson learnt by real practice, don’t you think? :-).

It is a very interesting question I have been asked today. Every professional needs to know clearly which are his strong points (competences, talents) but not everyone knows in which level of development we do possess those abilities we need. There is an interesting model which show us the stage in which we are for each of the professional skills we want to improve. Let’s say you are becoming ready to launch your new company. There are a lot of key competences and skills you need to learn: management, initiative, communication skills, etc. How do you know if you have reached a good level on each of them?

The development of a soft skill goes through a process of 4 different phases. Putting that on a schema, we have a circle in which each quadrant is a learning phase, and the arrows, the direction we need to move.

So  for each professional competence we adquire we go through this process:

1. Unconscious Incompetence:

• the person is not aware of the existence or relevance of the skill area
• the person is not aware that they have a particular deficiency in the area concerned
• the person might deny the relevance or usefulness of the new skill
• the person must become conscious of their incompetence before development of the new skill or learning can begin
• the aim of the trainee or learner and the trainer or teacher is to move the person into the ‘conscious competence’ stage, by demonstrating the skill or ability and the benefit that it will bring to the person’s effectiveness

2. Conscious Incompetence

• the person becomes aware of the existence and relevance of the skill
• the person is therefore also aware of their deficiency in this area, ideally by attempting or trying to use the skill
• the person realises that by improving their skill or ability in this area their effectiveness will improve
• ideally the person has a measure of the extent of their deficiency in the relevant skill, and a measure of what level of skill is required for their own competence
• the person ideally makes a commitment to learn and practice the new skill, and to move to the ‘conscious competence’ stage

3. Conscious Competence

• the person achieves ‘conscious competence’ in a skill when they can perform it reliably at will
• the person will need to concentrate and think in order to perform the skill
• the person can perform the skill without assistance
• the person will not reliably perform the skill unless thinking about it - the skill is not yet ’second nature’ or ‘automatic’
• the person should be able to demonstrate the skill to another, but is unlikely to be able to teach it well to another person
• the person should ideally continue to practise the new skill, and if appropriate commit to becoming ‘unconsciously competent’ at the new skill
• practise is the singlemost effective way to move from stage 3 to 4

4. Unconscious Competence

• the skill becomes so practised that it enters the unconscious parts of the brain - it becomes ’second nature’
• common examples are driving, sports activities, typing, manual dexterity tasks, listening and communicating
• it becomes possible for certain skills to be performed while doing something else, for example, knitting while reading a book
• the person might now be able to teach others in the skill concerned, although after some time of being unconsciously competent the person might actually have difficulty in explaining exactly how they do it - the skill has become largely instinctual
• this arguably gives rise to the need for long-standing unconscious competence to be checked periodically against new standards

The progression is from quadrant 1 through 2 and 3 to 4. It is not possible to jump stages. For some skills, especially advanced ones, people can regress to previous stages, particularly from 4 to 3, or from 3 to 2, if they fail to practise and exercise their new skills. A person regressing from 4, back through 3, to 2, will need to develop again through 3 to achieve stage 4 - unconscious competence again and for certain skills in certain roles stage 3 conscious competence is perfectly adequate.

One of the most famous speeaches from Steve Jobs about motivation, pursuing our goals and following our intuition. It is perfect to make us think about our lives a bit :-). Steve explains 3 stories about his life, personal and professional regarding its success with Apple and how he got fired, which leads him also to create NeXT and Pixar. It is one of those videos you’d like to watch often to keep in mind what we really wanna do with our lives (and as far as I know, Steve has never had a life or executive coach! :-)).

As we were saying yesterday, it is important for a team to have some basic skills if it wants to fulfills its potential and reach its goals. These skills can be divided into three different categories: team management practices, team problem solving and team conflict handling.

• Team management practices or skills refer to the team itself and the way it works, that is, the overall level of team commitment and social functioning and the way a team approaches a task. In a team with good team management practices, members agree on their purpose, vision, strategy, and goals (task strategies); they agree on how they will collaborate and communicate, and establish memberships and roles (social strategies); and they establish a strong commitment to the team from the members (commitment strategies).

• Team problem solving practices refer to the team’s problems or tasks, and how they are solved. This includes techniques for generating and building on ideas (such as brainstorming), effective communication, discussion techniques, and strategies for decision making. Good team problem solving practices help the team create synergy and thus the team benefits from the members’ individual knowledge, skills and experience.

• Team conflict solving skills allow the team to avoid unnecessary conflict and to solve conflict constructively and effectively. This is very important, not only since conflict can be emotionally painful and steal energy and focus from the team’s objectives, but also because a certain level of substantive (not personal) conflict is necessary for the team to perform well.

It is very important for teams to build these skills right from the start, but most teams fail to do this properly. This start-up phase can be viewed as a training camp for teams. Just like successful mountain climbers must spend sufficient time preparing for their ascent by planning their route, testing equipment, deciding on roles and responsibilities, adapting to the climate, and stocking supplies, teams must devote enough time and energy to developing effective team management practices, problem-solving abilities and conflict-handling processes. As teams spend time building these essential skills, they learn to work together more effectively.

In other words, you need to ensure that your team is really prepared for effective collaboration.

Most of us do work daily with lots of different people, colleagues, team mates, etc and we are many times responsible for those same people when working together towards a same objective. But, how do you measure how well your team is working? Examining the team’s purpose helps us to answer this question.

A team is formed to solve one or several different problems. But that is also true of a working group. What is different in a team is that a team creates synergy from its members’ individual skills and knowledge. Thus, it is vital for the team to develop a positive social climate that motivates the members and makes this synergy-possible.

So, we could say that the quality of teamwork can be measured in two ways:

• Team performance: This measures the degree to which members agree that the team’s productive output (product, service or decision) meets the requirements for quality, quantity, and service expected by the team’s customers (the customers can be other teams, another organisation, a donor, government, a manager from an external company, etc).
• Team satisfaction: This measures the extent to which group members enjoy being a member of the team and experience the social rewards of membership.

Only the team itself truly knows how well it is performing and how skilled members are at working together, so it is usually best to ask the team itself to assess its performance and level of satisfaction. A smart team will evaluate its performance and work and learn from it.

The figure below shows also that some disagreement about what or how things should be done is needed for the team to have good discussions. The horizontal graph goes from no conflict at all to a devastating level of manifested conflict, in which people are working against each other and attack each other personally. Without going deeper into the different levels of conflict, it is important to note that if there is no disagreement or discussion about how things should be done, it is difficult for a team to make very good decisions.

If you would have to say what is the quality of your team work right now, what would you say?

I have recently finished Seth Godin’s ebook, The Purple Cow.  Although I think there is a lot of blablabla for my personal taste, there are some good points that it feels worthy mentioning them. The concept of the Purple Cow is to create something completely different and remarcable so it makes possible for you to be noticed on the competitive markets we all face in business nowadays. The main ideas I have extracted from the book are:

• It is far simple to sell something new to your actual customers than to acquire new ones, so take care of them and give them the opportunity to be the first to try out your new products.
• Create products and services truly remarcables that only the right people is seeking. Do not try to sell to everyone and focus your marketing efforts on the “early adopters” (we bloggers tend to be in this category), as they will be the ones helping you to market your product in a more effective way.
• Dare to launch stuff completely different from what everyone is used to find out there, if you have to be noticed, be the first one with a good product.
• Invite your customers to change their behaviour to use your product more efficiently till they get use to it (here the book comes with several examples that I will not explain now)
• If your product or service does not grow as you expected and does not turn out into a very very good product, take the benefits and create something new that will be that good and remarcable.
• Ideas that spread and everyone knows, are ideas that gain popularity and success. Explain your idea to as many people as possible.
• A product for everyone is a product for no one, be exclusive in what you offer.
• Your products must be good enough so viral marketing goes alone with no effort from your side.
• Announce your product or service only to the right people on the right media
• And lastly, create a slogan that spreads as well as a virus :-), it will be key part of your success.

In general I think it is a quite interesting book and with many useful concepts we all can apply in our projects and businesses. If someone has read it I am looking forward to exchange ideas about it!

Every project manager knows that monitoring is a necessary tool for effective project control which implies watching and influencing key activities and accomplishments. In order to be effective, it must be done in an organized way and has to be used for informing others who are involved about progress and problems arising in our work. It mainly concentrates on project activities and short-term performance.

Purpose of monitoring

Monitoring is a routine process which starts when the planning phase of the project has ended and ends after the project has finished. It actually keeps the track of project problems in order to:

• Anticipate problems
• Detect current problems
• Correct problems and/or redesign certain activities
• Get feedback
• Encourage progress
• Provide motivation

A good monitoring will allow you be much more effective and react quickly in front of changes, also will allow you foresee in advance possible dangers and unexpected consequences.

What do you monitor?

The specific items to monitor will vary according to the projects, but they usually include a range of performance, technical and cost factors.  Some types of factors which are part of a good monitoring plan are:

• Project activities and progress toward objectives – each activity and task must be monitored in order to be aware of the project progress status.
• Project “delivery” – if the project has more stages involving interaction between your team and other external entities check if these communication tasks are done and check the opinion of the other parties involved.
• Resource availability and utilization – check the planned resources and reassign them if possible in order to make savings.
• Schedule realism and changes – this is usually done for projects which involve changes in the schedule before the project takes place. This is done to avoid overlapping of activities during the event itself.
•  Administrative issues – any organization has to exist in a legal framework in order to avoid possible problems because of government and donors checks (especially in the financial area). Usually there are financial reports which are requested and must be given to the state or the international organisations supporting us. Also during big projects it is usually very hard to keep track of all the expenses due to different people spending money.
• Team process – from time to time sit together with your team and look at the way you are working together, the way you take decisions and other aspects of team processes. Do not forget to spend some time on teambuilding activities and check afterwards to see if they are welcomed, if they have to be changed or not or if your team needs more or less activities of this kind.

How to monitor

Here are a few steps for a good monitoring process:

• Based on the type of a task/activity that will be monitored, determine what (what indicator/measure) will be monitored.
• Decide on how (in what way/form) and when (at what intervals) to monitor. Choosing the way or tool for monitoring depends on what is monitored.
• Accountability software or an Excel sheet could be good for financial monitoring. A task list can be good for activities or human resources and a check list can be used for tasks.
• Develop short, concise and simple record forms when monitoring.
• Monitor as planned and keep records.
• Define all the problems that you managed to identify.
• Consider whether the problem (problems) is so significant that it needs a solution, if the solution is urgent, if the problem is getting bigger or smaller, and if it is connected to some other problem.
• Monitor how the new solution fits the problem and make a report of it.

All this tools and techniques will give you without doubt better control of your project and help you to reach its goals easier and in a more effective way, dont’ you think?

As much as you work on improving your negotiation style, there is still a lot of preparation and work behind a good negotiation. The difference between a good and a bad negotiator, whether in business or in daily life, is that the former has thought about what they are doing, has prepared thoroughly, and has taken the time to think through the situation from the other person’s point of view. They have considered what factors could hinder the process and tried to think of ways around problem areas.

The ineffective negotiator

• lacks preparation
• does not have clear objectives
• fails to understand the other side’s point of view
• has unrealistic expectations
• tries to close the deal too quickly
• lacks clarity as to what the deal involves on either side
• gets hung up on areas of disagreement
• tries to avoid discussing areas that might prove contentious

The effective negotiator

• prepares
• has a clear view of what they need to achieve
• is prepared to listen to the people they deal with
• will be flexible and look for creative solutions to problems
• will have thought through what is reasonable
• will examine and understand the details of the agreement
• moves from contentious areas to those where the agreement can be reached
• ensures that all problems are eventually dealt with and resolved

When you are fully prepared, you are able to negotiate from a position of strength. You will feel, and appear to be, more confident and assertive in your dealings with others. If you go into a situation believing that there is a high chance of success, this enables you to deal with other people in a positive way. The ineffective negotiator enters into the negotiations unprepared, appears less organized and less confident, and so is less likely to achieve the outcome they desire.

We end our summary of the different negotiation styles (you can find yours here) by commenting the two remaining profiles we were missing. If you had a result of mostly “C”s or mostly “D”s, check out below:
Supportive/ Understanding - Mostly C

You probably give away too much in negotiations in an effort to avoid conflict, and may have a tendency to use tentative or unassertive language. You may get “you win: I lose” outcomes more often than you would like.

Areas to work on

• In the preparation phase, decide what it is that you must have from the deal and ensure that those needs are met.
• Think through what are you asking for and why it is important to you so that you can communicate this clearly to others.
• Always prepare a structured agenda –this will help you to ensure that you cover all the issues.
• Work on your body language so that it agrees with your verbal message. Otherwise you may come across as being tentative and uncertain.
• Try to see conflict as productive – both sides have to express their conflicting demands before agreement can be reached.

Flexible/ Compromising - Mostly D
People probably enjoy doing business with you – you strive to deal with people in a friendly and relaxed manner. There is a danger, however, that you will give too much away for the sake of the relationship and fail to focus on those areas which are important to you.

Areas to work on

• Structure your negotiations so that all the points are dealt with in detail, and you are not tempted to let something go.
• Be honest about your concerns. Remember, the point of establishing a good relationship with the other party is that it should be beneficial to both sides.
• Do not be afraid to express disagreement. Differentiate between saying “no” to the request and “no” to the person.

Just remember that these styles are not fix, and everyone uses a combination of all of them sometimes. In my case I am mostly A and C, what about you?

If after the exercise to determine your negotiation style you discovered you had plenty of “B” on your results, you are a conservative-analytical negotiator. What does it means?

Analytical/ Conservative - Mostly B

You probably prepare well for negotiations. You know what is important and you take care to find out the other person’s position and are prepared to be flexible to reach agreements on both sides. However, people may find you somewhat formal and clinical in your dealings. They may be intimidated by your style and so hesitate to express their concerns. If this is your case, it may be difficult for others to create a nice and comfortable talking atmosphere in which to easy the stress or pressure you and the other party may have to reach an agreement.

Areas to work on

• Try to spend a little more time during the initial discussion developing a personal rapport with the other party.

• Be aware of your own body language, and make sure that it accurately reflects your flexible and open-minded approach to the negotiation.

• If you think the other side is not saying what is on their mind, ask.

• Relax! Let the other side know that you are satisfied with the way the negotiation is progressing.