Kingfisher Coaching

Weaknesses are not the opposite of strengths – don’t ignore them

janmalone — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 15:11:00 +0000

Weaknesses are not the opposite of strengths – don’t ignore them

I’m a huge fan of strengths-based approaches but it worries me when people misunderstand and suggest that this means ignoring weaknesses because it doesn’t, and I think the confusion often comes from a lack of understanding of what we really mean by the terminology.

I have got strengths, things that I’m naturally talented at and that come easy to me. I’ve also got things that I’m not naturally talented at, what Gallup defines as lesser/non-talents. Weaknesses aren’t the opposite of strengths and Gallup has two really helpful definitions:

(1) A weakness is “anything that gets in the way of your success.“¹

(2) A weakness is “a shortage or misapplication of talent, skill, or knowledge that causes problems for you or others.“²

If I examine my own weaknesses, most of them are consequences of me over-using a strength or getting in my own way, with only a minority connected to my lesser talents and I find the same to be true of my clients.

If I’m working with you on a weakness, we won’t spend all the time dwelling on areas of lesser talent and trying to make them strengths. Rather, we’ll be having a positive, resourceful, empowering discussion about how you can use your strengths (and your team’s) and overcome/ work around/ mitigate the weakness.

I can tell when my clients truly understand this when I hear them openly acknowledging and discussing their weaknesses whilst simultaneously saying ‘I am enough’ and talking about ‘being more of who I already am’. Weaknesses are not the opposite of strengths and we shouldn’t simply ignore them.

I’ve previously written about why I believe the common decathlon/heptathlon metaphor is a poor representation of strengths³, and I’ll close with the same closing words from that article:

References

References
↑1	To Unleash People’s Strengths, Help Them Manage Weaknesses
↑2	Debunking Strengths Myth #1
↑3	Why playing to your strengths isn’t like competing in the decathlon or heptathlon

A learning experiment – 7th-week sabbatical

janmalone — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 15:22:00 +0000

A learning experiment – 7th-week sabbatical

There are a couple of areas where I’m not performing as I want to:

(1) I often end up working too hard. I really enjoy the work I do and I care deeply about the impact of it, so this is an easy trap for me to fall into. Early in lockdown, I found a really good balance but this has slipped a little.

(2) One thing getting in the way of me achieving all of my goals/ambitions is that I very rarely make enough time for research and writing. (I’m saying ‘make’ rather than the usual ‘find’ as I’m owning this).

Given that I spend my working life helping leaders get the best of themselves, I’ve been a little frustrated that I haven’t been fully practicing what I preach so I’m addressing that and I’ve decided to work out loud in what I’m doing.

I’m experimenting with a ‘7th week Sabbatical’ (this is my first day) inspired by a few ideas:

1 – Resting and recharging: I often remind people that rest isn’t the opposite of (or a competitor to) work¹ but I don’t always live that advice myself and I want to try some ways to build that into the rhythm of my work.

2 – I took away a lot of ideas from Cal Newport’s book ‘Deep Work’² and having tried some of the other approaches, I’ve decided to try a proper experiment with his ‘bimodal philosophy’ to Deep Work, by scheduling a decent length of time for research and writing.

3 – I listen to a lot of podcasts when I’m driving, and a mention of ‘7th week sabbaticals’³ really got me thinking

4 – I often struggle with writer’s block when I blog, but there was an idea that Anne-Laure Le Cunff shared on a panel discussion⁴ where Anne-Laure said “I’m writing what I wish existed when I was at a stage when I didn’t know how to do this….. Teach for your past self”. That sparked lots of thoughts for me.

5 – I’m a big fan of learning experiments because we often don’t know exactly what will work for us. So, I’m doing a ‘7th week sabbatical’ as an experiment. The purpose is to see whether it works for me and to learn how best to do it, so the experiment can’t fail as it will produce valuable learning.

I’m trying a pattern of 6 weeks work then a sabbatical. Then another 6 weeks work and then a holiday. It is Monday, the first day of my first sabbatical week. I have had the week blocked out for ages and I have no commitments in my diary. With one exception: I have a regular Friday catch-up with two fabulous people – Kelly Swingler and David Faulkner – and I’m still going ahead with that on Friday as I think I’ll need it at the end of the week!

How has it gone so far? I’ve had a lie-in, we’ve walked the dog in Lyme Park, and I’ve had some solid research time. There’s some learning already; I had a couple of things hanging over from last week that I felt guilty about not doing so I’ve done them and – in an ideal world – I’d fully clear the guilt list on a Friday afternoon before my sabbatical week.

But – finally – I’m writing. Not for everybody on the planet, but for me before I knew what I now know. For those who might find this helpful. And that feels good!

References

References
↑1	Pang, A. S. (2018). Rest: Why you get more done when you work less. New York: Basic Books.
↑2	NEWPORT, C. (2018). DEEP WORK: Rules for focused success in a distracted world. London: Piatkus.
↑3	https://sabbatical.blog/2018/08/origin-of-seventh-week-sabbaticals/
↑4	Stripe: THE CURIOUS MIND: A DISCUSSION OF TECHNICAL LEARNING AND TEACHING

The podcasts I listen to at the moment

janmalone — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 16:33:00 +0000

The podcasts I listen to at the moment

I’ve seen people asking for – and sharing – recommendations for podcasts to listen to, so I thought I would chuck mine into the mix. This is simply a list of what I listen to, although I treat them more like a magazine so I flick through and don’t necessarily listen to every single episode of every podcast (although I do for some). Here goes:

Business

Entertainment

Grief

Healthcare

HR

News and Politics

Personal Development/Psychology

Giving – Wellbeing Wednesday

janmalone — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 16:36:00 +0000

Giving – Wellbeing Wednesday

For #WellbeingWednesday I want to focus on the topic of giving. It features as one of the Mind Charity ‘5 ways to wellbeing’ – https://www.mind.org.uk/workplace/mental-health-at-work/taking-care-of-yourself/five-ways-to-wellbeing/

This comes with a huge caveat as some of you are probably giving too much of yourselves already and maybe need to prioritise your own self-care and do less.#SelfCareIsNotSelfish #WhoCaresForTheCarers

There are loads of ways you can do this. In my (self-created) objectives, I have a category called serve. It includes work I do for free, and things like serving as a Trustee or Chair, organising Connecting HR Manchester and taking time off for Connecting HR For Justice

In all these things, not only do I get the opportunity to help others, but I also learn a lot and it feels good for my soul!

We have to be careful to make sure that things we do to help actually do help. It is worth considering partnering with a charity that knows what it is doing and operates from a strong evidence base. Google ‘orphanage trafficking’ if you want an example of when helping hurts.

If you work in HR/people stuff, I founded a skills-based volunteering initiative called Connecting HR For Justice – we’re taking a team to Cambodia this year and we’re currently recruiting volunteers for Ethiopia: https://hopeforjustice.org/ethiopia2020/a

How to make the most of #cipdace 2019

janmalone — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 10:29:00 +0000

How to make the most of #cipdace 2019

The CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition starts in Manchester on Wednesday 6th November (one week today) and I’ve been planning how to make the most of my time there. I’ve re-read my previous reflections on conferences and here are my thoughts on how to make the most of #cipdace –

For attendees/delegates:

(1) Know what you want to get from the conference and take responsibility for getting it

I worry that we can sometimes fall into the trap of wanting our learning to be done for us, but we need to take responsibility for our own learning experiences. Be clear about what you want to get from the conference and do whatever you need to do to get that. Put a lot of effort into choosing which sessions to attend; not every session is right for everybody and it depends what you’re looking for. My own approach this year has been to use the new profession map from CIPD to guide my learning agenda for which sessions I want to attend:

(2) Make the most of what is on offer

I think learning from a conference is a little bit (but not exactly!) like 70:20:10 where the 10 is what you heard said on stage. You will learn loads from chatting to other attendees, asking questions of the speakers (before, during, and after their sessions), talking to exhibitors, drinking coffee with people, going to the social events, going to fringe events, engaging on social media, and making time to reflect on the whole experience and what you’re going to do with the learning.

One the subject of fringe events, Rachel Burnham and I have organised a CIPD Manchester breakfast fringe event on Thursday 7th November 0800-0915 on how HR can contribute to abolishing Modern Slavery, and I’ve shared some thoughts about the reason for organising this:

You can book a free place here and here’s the news story I mentioned about the recent Modern Slavery case in the West Midlands.

For Speakers:

Please, please make sure that your talk is what you said it would be. I know that we often have to submit the overview months in advance but people will choose (a) whether to attend the conference at all, and (b) which sessions to attend on the basis of the session descriptions. Your talk has to do what it says on the tin. If I’m using slides for a conference presentation, I always use my session description as my title slide so that is what people see as they arrive for the session; it helps to focus me on delivering what I promised!
Don’t sell. This applies to you, your organisation, and any services or products you offer. If you’re good, we’ll be interested in them anyway. Most people don’t like to pay to listen to a sales pitch.
Stick to time. I know it is hard to look at a slide pack and guess how long the session will be, but that’s another useful benefit of rehearsing.
Be engaging. We all have different presentation styles and varying levels of comfort with being on stage but if you don’t make an effort to be interesting and engaging then you will lose peoples’ attention.
Don’t just talk at people for 90 minutes. Get us involved or standing or talking in some way. My personal preference is not to have to massage the person next to me, dance, or stand on a chair but I know that we all have different preferences. Giving people something to discuss and then harvesting and sharing that learning can be very engaging if done well.
Don’t just say ‘research says’; it is lazy and over-use of that phrase diminishes your credibility in my eyes rather than enhancing it. If you can find a way of citing the references and mentioning the study and the conclusions you are drawing, then you get extra bonus points from me. I’ve noticed a shift to people saying ‘in the literature’; if you’re saying this because you know the literature then that’s great, but please don’t just say it because it sounds more credible.
Don’t use the neuroscience sandwich (i.e. mention neuro- / amygdala / synapses / dopamine – then something unrelated that you want us to believe – and then hijack / firing / something else neuro-related)) and assume that it will lend credibility to the thing in the middle. It won’t. I think we have learned (and will continue to learn) lots of really helpful things from neuroscience but I also believe it is being massively hyped and is just about to reach ‘the trough of disillusionment’ in the hype cycle. (If you’re not familiar with the hype cycle, have a look at the Gartner hype cycle). (I wrote this bullet point three years ago and, sadly, I think I was right about the hype.)
Be honest. I learn a lot from listening to the real experiences of projects. When preparing to share experiences from a project, I know how easy it is to post-rationalise and kid ourselves that we meant to do it in those phases and it was a straight line to success. I learn so much more from the people who stand at the front and share their experiences of the cock-ups, the false-starts, the confidence wobbles, as well as the successes.
If you want to really stand out as a conference speaker, make it all about us (the audience) and nothing about you. Ruthlessly edit your presentation so that you focus on doing what you said you would, and take out anything and everything that doesn’t support that.
If you take responsibility for doing what you say you’ll do, and doing it well, then I’ll take responsibility for making good session choices, giving you my undivided attention, and learning loads.

I’m really looking forward to the conference and exhibition and I’ll hopefully see you there to say hello and, possibly, catch up over a strategic latte.

Disclaimer: I was invited to be part of this year’s #cipdace blogsquad and received a free conference ticket so I could attend the sessions and share my insights. My thoughts and reflections are my own and unedited.