1. Recognise and understand your strengths and weaknesses
2. Build collaborative teams who communicate
3. Create a safe and trusting working environment
4. Embrace diverse thinking and skills

1. Recognise and understand your strengths and weaknesses?

“If you push me towards something you think is a weakness, then I’ll turn that weakness into a strength.” – Michael Jordan

Some things in life will inevitably change; nothing remains the same, and when the time arrives when the status quo is interrupted, you need to react accordingly to maintain performance.

In some circumstances, change is deemed detrimental to success and therefore categorised as a weakness. While there are instances when change hinders the progression of a team, it’s critical to pivot and embrace new philosophies and methods to maintain, and surpass, your aspirations.

NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan echoed this sentiment, rejecting avenues of weakness and channelling his efforts into forging a career based on foundations of success. This elite mentality saw him end an illustrious career littered with honours and achievements, including 6x NBA champions and 5x NBA MVP Awards.

Jordan shunned the path of limitation and based his career on the principles of the path of possibility; this mindset exemplifies how teams need to embrace change to increase their resourcefulness, even when faced with unfamiliar situations.

That said, before we can even attempt to embrace change, it’s critical to understand your colleagues’ and your own strengths and weaknesses.

Why is it important to recognise your strengths and weaknesses?

While it’s human nature to hone in on our strengths, you must also identify your weaknesses.

Anyway – for some, they describe these thoughts pushed forward as their “wake-up call”.

Identifying your strengths and weaknesses (and letting your peers know what they are) not only supports your personal development but also helps your colleagues understand your traits in more detail.

This helps you and your team complete short and long-term goals.

How Co-Creation can help you understand and accept your traits.

While the importance of identifying your strengths and weaknesses can’t be underestimated, this represents half of the task at hand.

Here at Co-Creation, we enable people to:

1. Develop a deeper understanding of their strengths, and
2. Accept their weaknesses and see them in a kinder light.

Doing so will help you become more comfortable offering and asking for help, and more importantly, increase your teams’ resourcefulness.

2. Build collaborative teams who communicate

In their top skills for 2022, leading recruitment company, Michael Page earmarked communication as a key trait an employer looks for in a prospective hire. This characteristic plays a quintessential part in supporting companies to increase resourcefulness in times of change.

An effective communication plan can play a significant role in helping us avoid anxiety and fear triggered by the change that could serve as a preventative of performing to our optimum potential. 

Our change model has been devised to foster collective working, and encourage team members to communicate their skillsets with others, in turn, combining these characteristics so they can play to each other’s strengths and help each other with gaps and weaknesses; rather than operating in silos.

How does a silo work?

When companies work in silos, this means they structure their teams in bubbles; employees could work on their own, or within an internal team or department.

While it could be argued silos can help employees focus on their specialist areas, they also come with their disadvantages, such as:

When something gives you a sense of meaning, it is both mentally engaging and stimulating to you and gives you a feeling of one-ness and connection.

• They can damage workplace cohesion.
• Employees can become disengaged.
• Team relationships can become fraught.
• Trust in key stakeholders can be compromised.

3. Create a safe and trusting work environment

With this in mind, act as a source of support and listen to the thoughts and opinions of your team. This will serve as an opportunity for your peers to be transparent and prompt them to find solutions to problems on their own.

Encouraging responsibility can enhance autonomy, build their ability to lead, and improve the overall quality of your team.

Conversely, however, some may not be as accustomed to working collaboratively and could need support in dropping their guard, before they can share their ideas.

We help teams foster psychological safety. In turn, this encourages team members to embrace the differences of their colleagues and see conflict as a way of building something better than building walls and silos. Enabling teams to build trust, openness, debate, be comfortable with healthy conflict, and hold each other accountable so the team is delivering in line with its shared purpose.

4. Embrace diverse thinking and skills

“Expertise is not a single skill; it is a collection of skills, and the professional may be highly expert in one of the tasks in her domain while remaining a novice in others.” – Daniel Kahneman

Teams can’t function if they rely on one core skill; you need a blend of different attributes; some team members may be great communicators, some may excel creatively, while others will be inspiring leaders.

Diversity is the bedrock of any team worth its salt, and when times change, such skills are combined to navigate challenges and maintain performance.

A diverse team helps a team to have a greater breadth of resources, skills, knowledge, and strengths to draw upon as changes arise.

Here at Co-Creation, we harness these skills and enable teams to build trust, openness, debate, be comfortable with healthy conflict, and hold each other accountable so the team is delivering in line with the purpose.

Find out more about FHOCAL™, our change management model, by emailing info@co-creation.group or call +44 7876 024555 and find out how we can help you increase your company’s resourcefulness in the face of ongoing change.

What is the point?

Do you ever find yourself wondering this? Often. Frequently. Never?

It is normal to ask ourselves what is the point of our existence.

When life throws its challenges at us and work just seems an uphill battle, it can feel thankless. Often it is the loss of someone we loved that has us standing there, at the funeral service, maybe crying, maybe singing, definitely remembering our love for them, but also experiencing a sense of own mortality. Feeling this mortality so keenly can lead us to question if we have our priorities straight in our life. If we are spending our time where we really want to, or are we just reacting and responding to what is happening around us?

This can be a tough thought and you may be tempted to just push it out of your mind and get on with what you are doing. However, I invite you to see what the value of this thought. It is your subconscious calling to you.

Our subconscious is the background processor of our thoughts because we need so much of our conscious capacity to interact with the world. Our subconscious is like our digestion system. Taking what you put into your head and then churning it through, its magical thought digestion process, to then allocate it to a memory and often to an action too.

Those moments when you suddenly remember, “Oh I must phone about that first-aid course I was thinking about possibly doing.” It’s your subconscious pushing forward an action related to a thought. In the case of the first aid course, it was witnessing a man have a heart attack in the queue for flight check-in at Manchester airport and no-one around knowing any first aid to be able to help.

Anyway – for some, they describe these thoughts pushed forward as their “wake-up call”.

When it comes to the really big stuff like why do we exist, why are we on this planet, why do I exist and what have I done with my life, why do I do this job and does anyone in this company notice – then this is when spending some time working on what you want your purpose to be in life can really help.

Plus, if you manage people, then you can help tap into this by also helping people connect their purpose to their role on the team and in the organisation. It’s a powerful way to help people engage.

What do I mean by purpose?

By purpose, I am referring to the extensive research around the value of finding meaning in life which states that people who feel they have a meaningful life are happier and more satisfied.

Focusing on finding what gives us meaning, helps us discover a purpose for ourselves.

Many people quote their family as their purpose, i.e. to provide and care for their children, parents, or partner. Indeed, a lot of parents tell me that having children has helped them find meaning and a purpose in their life, one that is much richer than their work.

However, asides from the incredible life choice that is parent-hood, there are other ways to find a meaningful life.

BUT I need to highlight here that it is something you must find for yourself.

I’ll say that again – if you spend all your time asking other people what your purpose should be, you will indeed get lots of answers, but all of them will be from others’ life perspectives and their view of you. So whilst it might be food for thought, only you can really be the one to identify what your purpose is.

However – as a leader and manager of people – you can help people understand how their own purpose connects to the organisation’s purpose.

Where do I start?

You might be thinking – but I’ve thought about it and I still don’t know exactly what my purpose is.

That’s okay. Part of discovering your life’s purpose is travelling through the land of ‘don’t know’.

And that’s when you’ve managed to let go of doing what other people tell you your purpose is.

Let me share with you why the land of ‘don’t know’ is part of the journey.

Firstly, when you accept that not knowing is okay, it invites you to have an open-mind, to have curiosity about the world around you and to experiment.

Secondly, spend some time getting involved in different things such as trying different jobs, in different industries, talking to people who do different work to you, and seeking experiences that you have never done before.

Thirdly, now this isn’t about thrill-seeking or having lots of fun. This is about paying acute attention to what you notice you feel in body and mind when engaging in these different experiences.

When something gives you a sense of meaning, it is both mentally engaging and stimulating to you and gives you a feeling of one-ness and connection.

What you need to look for are the patterns in this. When you engage in different actions and experiences, what are the (often small) things that give you that mental and physical feeling?

Most importantly, make a note of this consciously!

Over time, and the more you explore, the more likely you will build up a list of things that start forming a pattern.

For example, does helping another person give you that feeling? Does realising that what you designed made a difference to a project at work? Does finding out that your persistence in introducing more sustainable practices at work has made a difference to the world?

It can also be helpful to talk to other people to find out how they find meaning and purpose in life.

What new thing could you try this month that you have never done before?

How do I identify my purpose?

From finding things that give you that sense of meaning, you then start to build a vision of your purpose.

Purpose is similar to defining a life or work goal, but it is deeper and has more than external rewards. It has internal rewards in that sense of a powerful feeling.

Purpose is a feeling as well as a thought.

It needs you to imagine standing back and looking at your life from the outside. Almost like you’re in space and looking down on yourself on earth.

One helpful exercise can be the often used obituary exercise where you reflect on what you want people to say about you once you are dead.

However, I often find this morbid viewpoint can be a bit overwhelming.

Imagining yourself floating around in space looking back at yourself is much more fun. It also helps you stay in a positive mindset (link to pol).

By paying close attention to what you like, enjoy and connect with, you can start to link this back into the practicalities of life and work.

Ask yourself, what could you do in life or work that will help you bring in those elements that  give you that sense of meaning?

Warning – effort is now required! This will take: some research, talking to other people, exploring it with a career coach, completing a careers or motivations or strengths questionnaire, doing online research around industries and jobs. Remember that new types jobs are invented all the time!

With that research it’s then again looking at how you can gain exposure to and experiences in these things. Whether that’s volunteering, work experience, interim work, temp work, holiday work, job shadowing, having a mentor, doing a course, travelling, living somewhere different etc.

You are looking to make a deliberate connection between – what gives you a sense of meaning and what type of life and work can provide you with purpose; and also meet your practical needs, such as income.

It is a feedback loop, a learning cycle where you are constantly feeding in new experiences and feelings, tweaking and amending, and then trying something different.

Be open to what doesn’t work as well, how does that feed into your sense of meaning. If it reduces it or gives you the wrong sort of feeling, pay attention to that as a road not to travel down.

As a leader, how do I help people find their purpose?

As a manager or leader of people, there is a real opportunity here to give people a chance to broaden out their experiences and activities in an organisation. What one-off or special projects could they get involved in? Who could they be mentored by or job shadow? What training might give them a new perspective?

Helping people continue to explore, experiment and be curious about the organisation – enables them to find what they connect with most and brings them meaning.

Helping people make that conscious connection between their own purpose and the organisation’s overall vision can help increase that sense of engagement.

In summary…

Finding your purpose can also help you build the type of life you want to live and work in a role and organisation aligned with your purpose.

At Co-Creation, we help people find their purpose. We help organisations and leaders make the business’s purpose clear and help people connect their own purpose to the organisations; creating happier, more engaged employees.

When was the last time you asked a team member to do something for you and you got ‘that look’?

Have you ever been in a meeting where a colleague has rolled their eyes in response to something someone else said?

Have you noticed that when you are about to deliver an important presentation your heart beats that little bit faster?

Then you have spotted an indicator of an emotion. But what do you do with this?

Leaders who actively develop their emotional intelligence about themselves and others are more able to have strong and effective working relationships.

Being aware of our own emotions and the emotions of others is key to truly effective, authentic leadership. You may be aware of this being labelled Emotional Intelligence.

“Emotional intelligence is the practice of managing one’s own personality to be both personally and interpersonally effective. It is achieved through the habitual practice of thinking about feeling and feeling about thinking, to guide behaviour.” (Tim Sparrow & Jolyon Maddox, 1998).

Further to this, Lombardo and Eichinger’s leadership success factors (2004) included: intelligence, motivation, technical/operational knowledge, experience, learning agility and emotional intelligence.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

A helpful way to understand the parts of emotional intelligence is Tim Sparrow and Jolyon Maddox’s model of emotional intelligence:

At its simplest level, the extent to which you love yourself and are aware of your feelings and how they impact your behaviour, is a fundamental part of how you conduct your relationships with others.

Why does it matter?

For example, bullying behaviour in the workplace often comes from a place of insecurity. A leader may seek to feel better about themselves by putting other people down and treating them like they are beneath them. It is often labelled as ‘I’m okay, you’re not okay’ type behaviour (Eric Berne Transactional Analysis).

Plus, it can also be seen as victim type behaviour, where a leader claims to be disempowered and self-critical, pointing out how they can’t or won’t do something, as they might fail. We tend to label this as ‘You’re okay, I’m not okay’ behaviour.

Interestingly, I often observe leaders dance between these two types of behaviour as they are both coming from a place of insecurity and low positive self-regard. If a leader struggles to accept and embrace who they are and how they are wired, then they are constantly comparing themselves to others to try to make themselves feel better. They can oscillate between victim and bullying type behaviour, depending on context. It can appear incredibly inconsistent to those around them who may feel, “I never know what to expect!”

You may spot this in yourself, or you may know a leader who is like this. So what do you do about it?

• Develop self-awareness.

Principally, you need to focus on developing self-awareness as the first step.

By this, I mean, how can you find out more about yourself and your impact on others?

And if we’re talking about trying to help someone else in this regard, how could you provide very specific, behaviourally-based feedback to help them become aware of their impact on others?

You could choose a more formal route, such as a 360-degree assessment, to gather feedback from peers , those who work for you and your line manager using a structured question approach.

You could use a psychometric questionnaire to measure how you are wired and how others see you, such as StrengthscopeLeader™.

You could simply ask five people you know the following questions:

1. If you were describing me to someone else, which words would you use?
2. What do you really appreciate about my contribution to the organisation?
3. What one idea or recommendation would help me use my strengths more effectively?

You are seeking to develop an understanding of your personal needs and preferences. By understanding these you can start to identify your impact on yourself and others.

• Develop unconditional positive regard for yourself.

The second step is to understand how you regard yourself, as that impacts how you treat others.

What is your self-talk?

You know, those voices in your head saying, “You idiot! You don’t belong here”, versus, “Well done me!”

We need a healthy self-respect in order to have a stronger mental state and better relationships with others.

A good place to start is to accept compliments gracefully rather than feeling embarrassed and brushing them aside.

• Develop unconditional positive regard for others.

The third step is to look at how you show others positive regard.

Check yourself when tempted to judge, reject or attack someone for who they are, rather than for what they do or say.

Reframe your thoughts from: “Jo is a liar” to: “Jo shared incorrect information about X deliberately”.

Then stretch to understand. Attempt to put yourself in their shoes and understand things from their point of view, with their history, their limitations and their desires.

You might not like what they have done, but you will now be better placed to deal with it by having a conversation about their behaviour and the impact it has had.

When having this conversation, practise just listening.

Let them know you have heard and understood, and try to understand how they are feeling.

You don’t need to agree. You don’t need to argue or give advice. You just need to listen with unconditional positive regard for them as a person who is a human being in this world with their own challenges, no matter how different they are to you.

You don’t need to agree with them. But you do need to respect that they can have their own opinion.

Taking the time to develop your regard for others enables you to move into building more functional working relationships, particularly with people who think, feel and act differently to you.

It creates a stronger platform for diverse leadership teams to work better together.

• What you feel, see and hear, and why that matters.

The fourth step is to work on your self-awareness.

We are not robots. Sometimes we forget this about ourselves; especially as a leader through the pandemic, you may have significantly pushed yourself, worked long hours, not taken a break, asked others on your team to do the same.

We have a powerful capacity to do this for a sustained time but not forever. We can have the will but our bodies also have a say in this. Leaders ignore this at their peril as the side effects can be burn-out, stress, sickness and worse.

Therefore, we need to check in with ourselves and others.

For example, close your eyes and tune in to your body. Ask yourself what you feel, e.g. my heart is beating quite fast, my back is tense, I’m clenching my teeth, etc. Look for the physiological clues, as well as those in your heart and head.

Identify what that feeling might be and get specific!

You can use a feelings wheel to help you,

 working from the inner feelings to the outer to help you get there.

For example: my heart is beating quite fast as I feel ‘Fearful’. Indeed, I feel fearful as I’ve got an important presentation later today and I feel a bit ‘Threatened’. What if it goes wrong? What if I make a mistake? What if I look stupid? Get really specific with this feeling – I feel ‘Exposed’. If I make a mistake in this presentation, the CEO may think I don’t know my stuff and that could impact my career.

Once you have pinned down the exact feeling (the outer circle of the feelings wheel) you can then be much clearer about what action you could take to help you address this feeling.

• Pay attention to how others feel and why that matters.

The fifth step is to work on your awareness of how others feel.

In your meeting, did you spot the eye-roll? Did you see who looked at their watch? Did you see who shuffled their papers? What might be going on here? Boredom? Frustration? Late to something else?

It’s easy to assume what someone else might be feeling. For example, anger can be fear disguised.

Listen with your eyes as well as your ears.

Practise paying attention to others’ body language.

Focus consciously on what you think others are feeling and check out your assumptions.

E.g. “I notice you looking at your watch, did you need to be somewhere else?”, and you may get: “Yes, I’m late for a meeting”, or you could get: “I’m keen to move onto the next agenda item as I’ve something important to say”, or: “You’ve been talking a long time without asking what anyone else thinks”, and so on.

Do not assume you know what they are feeling. Check it out.

Why great leaders focus on developing their EI.

Relationships: Leaders who actively develop their emotional intelligence about themselves and others are more able to have strong and effective working relationships because their relationships will be deeper and have more trust.

Impact and Gravitas: They will be more impactful as they will come across to others as authentic in how they behave and what they say. They are more likely to speak with sincerity and be taken seriously by others.

Difficult Conversations: They will approach difficult conversations with a strong approach and feel more comfortable using radical candour appropriately, with positive effect.

Resilience: They are also likely to be more resilient as they will spot the signs in themselves and others when they need to slow down or speed up in their work focus.

If you want to know more about how to develop your leadership approach and emotional intelligence, drop us a line at info@co-creation.group.