So I thought it might be useful to put together my own top tips on getting the most out of your communication in business.

Listen 
We all think we are good listeners – try putting it to the test. Next time you are engaged in discussion with someone, let them finish talking before you start to speak. In fact, wait a full five seconds after they’ve finished before you begin.  Waiting five seconds will give them a chance to add something they may have forgotten and it will give you a chance to really absorb what they have said.

Develop understanding

To check any assumptions and develop understanding of what has just been said, try asking a couple of questions like…….

1. Is there anything else about…………..?
2. What kind of………………………………..?

On the words the speaker has just said. For example:-

‘I’d like our meetings to be more productive’

Q:  ‘What kind of productive…?’

Q: ‘Is there anything else about ‘our meetings’?’

When those questions are answered, you might be surprised how this improves your communication in business and how much better you and the other person understand both the issue and the solution.

Summarise to clarify

Check your understanding of what has just been said by summarising back to the speaker their words. You don’t want to sound like a parrot of course, so it might be best to use your own words to reflect to them what you think you have just heard. As well as checking understanding, this does have the added benefit of giving your partner the sense of feeling really heard, provided you get it right of course!

Meetings

It is said that no-one truly joins a meeting until they have the opportunity to address the group. So if you want good communication in business, before you start your agenda, why not give everyone an opportunity to say something – asking everyone to say what they hope to get out of the meeting can be really useful . As well as giving everyone an opportunity to speak, it helps set and manage expectations. However, you could also just have a little icebreaker to relax everyone before you start the serious stuff.

Story Boards

If you have a message to deliver, do so in the form of a story, so that you gradually build your argument in small, easy to understand steps which draw your audience in.

These are just some of my tips on making the most of your communication in business – I would love to know how you get on.

If you would like to know more about how we can help you develop your business communication, why not contact us on allison@macintoshwright.co.uk or 0

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In one of its regular polls, 81% of visitors to The Training Zone (an online magazine for corporate training professionals) thought remote working would be more widely used this year.

It is hardly surprising, given the extent of technology now available at our fingertips.

How many of us have got in to the habit over the last few winters (or even summers!) when bad weather is predicted, of staying at home. Rearranging whatever we had planned in the office or offsite, to catch up on emails or something else we have been putting off?

Or having conference, video or even skype calls in place of face to face meetings?

My question is, if it is so easy, why don’t we do it more?

The Training Zone visitors said they will do it more this year but why aren’t we all doing it already?

What stops us from taking advantage of some peace and quiet? Staying at home to get reports or other heavy tasks completed?

Business communication subtleties
There are a number of reasons I think but one of the main ones is that when we communicate from a remote position some of the subtleties of communication get lost.

And depending on which expert you listen to, non-verbal signals can account for between 50% and 80% of communication.

Whether it is the lower or higher figure, we do lose something when we switch our face to face exchanges for telephone, conference, video or skype calls.

Bridging the Gap
So how do we bridge that gap?

How do we make our remote communications as effective as those we have face to face?

One way is to develop our business communication skills by using Clean Language questions.

Clean Language is an approach designed to get the most out of conversations by giving the speaker space to talk about, explore and convey exactly what they mean.

The listener holds back their assumptions on what is meant when certain words are used, asking simple questions to clarify.

Or even just waiting for a few seconds after the speaker stops talking,  to see if they have anything they want to expand on.

If we can develop our business communication skills using a few Clean Language techniques, I believe we can make our remote working more productive.

If you would like to  know how you can improve your team’s performance by developing crystal clear business communication using Clean Language, contact us for an informal chat on 07551 303835 or email allison@macintoshwright.co.uk

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We uncovered some performance improvements by working on developing crystal clear communication both within the team and to/from the team.

After a recent review meeting with the team manager, we decided there was some mileage in looking for further efficiencies. Her staff are on the whole very experienced and if we approached it in the right way, we felt we could draw out and harness some worthwhile ideas.

We decided to hold some brainstorming sessions and in order to keep the pace fast, focussed and thereby, hopefully, more productive, we held three short sessions, each with four people, rather than one session with all 12 team members.

The team manager agreed to restrict her involvement to taking notes and only stepping in if there was excessive disagreement – this allowed her to absorb the output and left the team free to explore ideas without feeling the need to seek her approval.

As ideas came on to the table, the team asked each other ‘clean’ questions to dig deeper, check understanding and develop workable solutions.

In this situation, I found there were a few ‘clean’ questions which proved themselves to be more effective than others:-

Is there anything else about ..… (idea)…………?

What kind of …..… (idea)…………….?

What needs to happen for (idea)……to happen….?

And when…….(idea)…….then what happens?

Using clean questions in this way helped the listeners hold back on judging ideas whilst they explored exactly what was meant, how the ideas could be implemented and what the expected impact would be.

Some of the key outputs were:-
1. Leadership style
Because this is an experienced and already high performing team, the manager usually adopted a democratic approach which on the whole worked well. The team felt, however, that occasionally this prevented decisions being made and sometimes they would benefit from a more decisive leadership style (provided they understood the reason behind the decision).

2. Strengths
The team felt that people’s strengths could be used more. The team is set up to maximise relationships with their customers but this means each team member gets involved in all the processes needed to service that customer. The team felt there may be some benefit in allocating some processes to one or two team members who excelled at those particular tasks.

3. Role models
Leading on from the strengths point, the team felt there could be benefit in understanding how their role models actually became experts in what they did. What thought processes did they go through to make them excel at that task?

What was interesting about the session was that the team moved away from the usual process or task based ideas to come up with things which were more approach or attitude based.

I put this down mainly to the use of ‘Clean’ questions, which inevitably go a bit deeper as they are designed to clarify and develop understanding.

The session was only held a few weeks ago so whether it is successful ie do we actually make the productivity improvements remain to be seen. My client, however, has judged it a success already given the nature of the ideas generated. The fact that they have come from the team themselves means there is more of a likelihood they will be implemented successfully.

If you would like an informal chat on how a ‘clean’ brainstorming session can help you n your quest to become a high performing team why not call Allison on 07551 303835 or email allison@macintoshwright.co.uk

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I was asked to review the performance and remit of a team which existed to support the sales function of a large financial services organization. To see what improvements could be made. The team was described at the time by the Head of Department thus “The issues we had were around productivity, efficiencies and quality of work. It wasn’t about the team not being capable. The people within the team had really lost their direction, their self- esteem and didn’t understand the value they could contribute”

Within the team, Susan was regarded as highly capable and efficient and as such someone who could help the team make any changes it needed. However, she lacked confidence and had a reputation for ‘flying off the handle’. We agreed on a program of one to one coaching to help address some of these issues before we started on any further ‘whole team’ interventions.

Susan’s default coping mechanism was to put her head down and get on with her work, ignoring the rest of the team. Prior to her first session, she describes her situation “I would like assistance in building my confidence, dealing with difficult people, finding ways of demonstrating my skills to the wider team, raising my profile and looking for opportunities to progress. I know that I am hard working, very well organized and have good attention to detail. Outside of work I have good relationships with my partner and family and I love my horses. What holds me back is my lack of confidence, imagining that people have a low opinion of me, worrying and panicking that things will go wrong, holding back my opinions and having a ‘sharp’ tongue!”

An initial goal setting session helped Susan work out precisely where she wanted to go and what she needed to work on in order to get there. We used a ‘Clean’ approach to help her build a vision of the team she wanted to be part of. What came out of that was that she saw herself leading the team. She painted a picture of a confident, capable individual, respected by her colleagues, line manager and the wider team.

She saw that to be respected by others she would first have to have a relationship with them. What was ACTUALLY happening was that she was alienating herself from the rest of the team by ‘getting her head down’ – her coping mechanism for dealing with some of her frustrations. All she was doing was bottling everything up which of course came out eventually when she ‘flew off the handle’.

The first thing she looked at was how she could harness her frustrations in to constructive, objective feedback which would benefit the whole team. We talked about using ‘Clean’ feedback, which separates evidence from impact. This would allow her to be more open and start moving towards others.

As her relationships gradually started to build, Susan began to see how getting things done in the team could be accomplished better by managing the relationships rather than managing the tasks. And of course, now that those around her were seeing less of the ‘blow ups’, they were able to see more clearly Susan’s strengths – her attention to detail and organisational skills.

As Susan’s confidence grew, she could see more clearly a day when she would manage this team. She began to work even harder and take on more responsibilities. In fact, she was taking on too much and becoming over tired. Her low confidence issues started to creep back but this time she recognised that, because they came from inside herself, she had control over them. She just had to look after herself by not getting too tired and asking for support when she needed it.

Susan was appointed Team Leader 6 months in to our coaching program, something that no one in the wider team would have imagined before we started.

With Susan at the helm, the team began to flourish and the need for any extensive ‘whole team’ work was drastically reduced.

Her comments ‘I have grown as a person and developed my own place. .  I can honestly say I am a different person at home and in the work place.  I am now running the team and have been recognised by senior managers within the department for my consistent high level of work and attitude.  For the future, I am working on reshaping the team to include full support for other teams within our department.

And the comments of the Head of Department “what we have now is a team that can be built on, one we can extend because it’s on firm foundations. It gives us a lot more opportunity and we can start looking more strategically at how it will play a bigger role for us. And if you align that to where we are as a business, on a massive growth curve, all of a sudden, the capabilities, the competencies that are within that team become far more important.

It’s actually going to play a much bigger part of the business because now it can!”

If you would like an informal chat on how to discover the key to your team’s success, why not call Allison on 07551 303835 or email allison@macintoshwright.co.uk

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1. To persuade your senior team to agree a project you wish to get the company involved in
2. To convince potential customers to buy from your organisation.
3. To clarify and persuade existing customers the need for a change in their terms and conditions or ways of working
4. To instil confidence in and build engagement from your team on a new initiative.

I recently came across what seems to be the ultimate exercise in getting your point across – the actor, Alan Alda set up a competition last year called The Flame Challenge, where scientists were invited to explain a scientific concept to a team of 11 year old judges. The idea behind the competition is to communicate to youngsters in a way that develops their interest in science.

What a great idea – to engage and inspire youngsters by coming in to their world and have them judge your efforts on how good you are at doing it!

So I thought it might be useful to produce a list of tips on the best way of getting your point across using a mixture of what I learned from The Flame Challenge and my own experiences.

1. Use metaphor to convey your message. As part of our work in Clean Language, we help our clients use metaphor to build a vision of the future they would like to create. This approach, when conveyed in picture form, can communicate thoughts, opinions and ideas with limited use of words.

We recently worked with the manager of a newly formed team to check the mood of the team four weeks in to their new roles. We spent some time with them asking Clean Language questions so that they could produce a metaphor of the current situation.  They came up with a picture of a boat on rough seas, with the captain at the front, focussed on moving forward. There were slaves in the galley rowing as fast as they could and a deck hand scooping buckets of water from the deck in to the sea.

He got the picture in more ways than one and our subsequent sessions looked at a metaphor for what they wanted to have  happen and what needed to happen for them to get there.

2. Make it easy enough for an 11 year old to understand. You can make your own mind up here if you watch last year’s winner.

3. Build a story board – that is deliver your message in the form of a story so that you gradually build your argument in small, easy to understand steps which draw you audience in.

4. Invest quality time in putting your story together. Remember that every minute spent on a ‘getting your point across’ presentation, saves two hours persuasion time later on. If your audience gets a good quality, memorable and entertaining message, that will save you lots of future debating time.

5. Use both visual and audio. This has the effect not only of appealing to different learning styles, but you are also allowing the information to be remembered in more than one way.

And I can’t wait for the winner of this year’s challenge which has been set by the children themselves, which is What is Time - a question which this time has been set by the children themselves.

Using metaphors to build and understand a desired outcome is part of the Clean Language approach Allison uses in her work helping business leaders reach their full potential. .

If you would like to know more about how Macintosh Wright and Clean Language can help you reach your full potential, contact Allison on allison@macintoshwright.co.uk or Tel: 07551303835

Clean Language was developed by psychotherapist David Grove.

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It goes something like this………

An actuary, an underwriter and an insurance salesperson are riding in a car. The salesperson has his foot on the gas, the underwriter his foot on the brake and the actuary is looking out the back window telling them where to go.

Funny, but not when you’re one of them, working with different personality types with different views of the world, on the same project, in the same organisation, with the same overall objectives.

You all want to achieve the same thing, usually profitable growth for your company. But of course, if you are the salesman, your emphasis will be on growth, and the actuary’s emphasis will be on profit.

That’s the law of this particular jungle.

So I thought it might be useful to put together my top five tips for salespeople (and I’ll explain further down why my focus is on the salesperson) on how to get the best out of your relationships with actuaries.

And of course these are tips which apply not just to actuaries and sales people but any situation where different personality types want to work together in a way that gets the best out of each.

1. Take the initiative. Accept that the success of this relationship is your responsibility. Relationship management is core to your skillset, it’s somewhere down the bottom of the list for an actuary. So accept that if this project or relationship is to succeed, it’s down to you.

2. Go into their world. Let’s face it, you’ll never completely understand their world. If you did, you would be an actuary yourself. But you can take some time out to completely immerse yourself in what they do. And that means listening. A lot.
I read a book once on bringing up children which said that one of the best things you can do to make a child feel valued is to give them attention for as long as they want it. No, ‘I’ll play a game with you for half an hour then I’ve got some chores to do’, just be with them until they’ve had enough and are ready to turn their attention away from you.
Now I’m not saying treat your actuary like a child, but it’s a useful comparison. And if you want your actuary to feel you value him or her, spend some time immersed in what they do. Listen, and listen more intently by asking questions which will take you more deeply in to their subject. Questions like ‘is there anything else about…..’ or ‘what kind of….’ – you’ll know what is the right question to ask based on the context of your conversation.
Let them feel you understand their issues.

An actuarial disagreement

3. What’s important. As you embark on a new project, spend a bit of time establishing what is important to each of you. This kind of exercise establishes a base, a grounding for your work together, so from the beginning you are clear about the things that are important to you both.
And when you have this discussion, ask those same simple questions ‘what kind of’ and ‘is there anything else about?’ to help you develop real clarity about each other’s values and drivers.
Understanding each other’s values or drivers, gives you a base or bottom line to consider when you hit an obstacle or disagreement.

4. Problem solving. When you do hit disagreements, try the NLP perceptual positions exercise to find a solution. In short, you look at the problem from three different perspectives. Your own, the other person’s and as a detached observer. You can find more details of how to go about this here.

5. Client meetings. Depending on the nature of the contract you are negotiating or managing, there could be some value in taking your actuary along to a client meeting.  Hearing first hand the clients’ needs and seeing first hand your pressures will deepen their understanding of the bigger picture. And the chance to have a conversation between all three of you may bring some new ideas to the table.

6. Accept the relationship tension. However you choose to progress, accept from the start that the relationship between actuaries and salespeople will always be one of tension. That way you can keep your focus on managing that tension for the greater good of the project you both want to succeed, rather than trying to resist something which is inevitable.

‘What kind of’ and ‘Is there anything else about’ are two simple questions at the heart of Clean Language,  a methodology used by Allison in her work helping business leaders reach their full potential by developing crystal clear communication.

If you would like to know more about how Macintosh Wright, Clean Language and innovative communication solutions can help you reach your full potential, whether in your relationship with actuaries or otherwise, contact Allison on allison@macintoshwright.co.uk or Tel: 07551303835

Clean Language was developed by psychotherapist David Grove.

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There were lots of results worthy of note including – the difference between an employees’ perception of their line manager compared with their perception of more senior managers in the business and also, the correlation between an employees’ view on their managers and how engaged they are in the business.

But there were a couple of other results from which I drew one simple conclusion that might help us all be better leaders.

And those results centred around the difference between an employee and  their manager’s perception of how the employee was treated.

The table below looks at how often each party feels they meet to discuss work related issues:-

Putting to one side for a moment how often you think you SHOULD meet with your line manager or employees, what is interesting is that 50% of Managers compared with 17% of employees believethey meet weekly.

And similarly, differences in perception about what they talk about when they DO meet.

So, nearly ALL managers think they listen, give recognition, provide feedback and discuss the wellbeing of their employees ‘always or sometimes’ against, on average, two thirds of employees.

So what do the other third think? When their bosses think they are doing all that good stuff, what are the employees hearing?

Given the results from this survey, it seems to me that if we are looking to improve the performance of our leaders and their teams, a really good place to start might be to look at how well a leader and their team communicate with each other.

Only when we are sure there is a high degree of clear, clean communication should we consider the leader’s skill gaps and what kind of development program might help improve the team’s results.

Another interesting part of the survey was the link between satisfaction with a direct manager and how ‘engaged’ an employee is.

In defining engagement, the CIPD take account of such factors as whether an employee is motivated by the purpose of the organisation, trusts the senior managers and works more hours than is paid or contracted to. And the survey shows:-

So an employee is more likely to be engaged (and therefore more productive) if they believe a manager ‘always or sometimes’ spends time listening, giving praise, providing feedback and discussing their well being.

If you manage a team and would like to improve productivity, rather than look for ways of spending more time with them or giving more praise and feedback, why not start by finding out how all the good stuff you are already doing is actually perceived by them?

If you would like to find out more about how you can develop clear, clean communication between you and your team, email me at allison@macintoshwright.co.uk or call me on +44 7551 303835

If you would like to read the CIPD report in full, go to www.cipd.co.uk

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However easy or difficult it is for you, you can develop your leadership skills more quickly by being on constant look out for ways others demonstrate their own leadership qualities. Even if theirs is a totally different environment to your own.

Take the  Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organisation which represents the majority of nuns in the USA.

The LCWR last week pushed back in strong terms against a recent Vatican report which accused it of ‘radical feminism’ and calling for it to reform. They called it ‘deeply disturbing’ and are now preparing a more detailed response for a meeting with the Vatican.

And the lesson we can take from these particular women in leadership?

That effective leadership is all about challenging.

Like these nuns, you may be part of a large organisation and be a leader AND a follower. A leader following other leaders, as these nuns are, part of the Catholic Church.

But are you a follower first or a leader?

I believe a TRUE definition of leadership is to lead first before you follow.

 The distinction being the difference between leadership and management. For if you feel your job is to follow your boss first before you lead, then you are a manager rather than a leader.

Although it might not always be easy, only when you do challenge and push back will you start to develop true leadership qualities.

Michael Foley Photography via photo pin cc

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There is one approach, however, which I believe has the ability to address all of these issues at once, deliver the ‘more for less’ that organisations are looking for and at the same time develop our own leadership skills, helping us work more effectively with our teams.

And that is the use of Clean Language. Clean Language, otherwise known as ‘extreme listening’, was developed by psychotherapist David Grove during the 1980s and 90s. David experimented with questions that maximised the client experience by paying very close attention to the words and language they used. It uses a set of specific questions along with the client’s own words to develop clarity and creative thinking, which in turn prompts change.

Using the clear and creative state of mind the clients, or in our case, our teams have developed, it becomes easier to explore how a desired outcome will be achieved.

So how can Clean Language help us become better leaders? I believe it can help in many ways but some of the key ones are:-

People development

1. The questions make it easy for our teams to be very specific about their feelings and opinions, which raises clarity and understanding between us.
2. People feel heard, which in turn makes them feel valued and thereby more engaged

Solution finding tool

1. We become more clear about the issues our team are facing and what is holding them back, which makes it easier to work with them to find solutions
2. Our listening gives them more clarity which in turn helps them find more creative solutions
3. Because they have developed their own solutions, rather than being told what to do, there is no resistance to any changes needed.

Building or communicating a vision.

Total clarity of the common goal is achieved as the process allows for checking and addressing assumptions. And the team will associate (or ‘engage’) more strongly with the vision if their questions and assumptions have been addressed using Clean questions. Once there is clarity, further Clean questions will help the team explore fully and provide more creative solutions for all the things that need to happen for the plan to be achieved.

Leading projects.

When a new group of people come together to deliver a product or process for an organisation, often one of the keys to success is communication which is crystal clear to all. This can be easily achieved if the project leader is able to use Clean Questions.

Cross cultural working.

Increasingly common, working with people from different cultures requires a very specific focus on establishing common understanding of ways of working.

Leading sales or customer service teams.

Here the questions can be used to develop a high level of understanding of a prospect or customer requirements.

I believe that adopting Clean Language questioning across an organisation will take communication and understanding to a whole new level, bringing along the way the engagement, ‘more for less’ and empowerment so eagerly sought in organisations today.

If you would like to find out more about how Macintosh Wright can help with developing the leadership skills of your organisation using Clean Language, contact us at allison@macintoshwright.co.uk or 07551 303835

This article was first published in The Training Zone – www.trainingzone.co.uk

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There are three things at the heart of Clean Language which allow this to happen.
Firstly, paying exquisite attention to and exploring the words used by participants. This happens when the facilitator repeats back some of the key words used and asks questions like ‘Is there anything else about that’ or ‘What kind of’. Doing this gives everyone a clearer understanding of the statements made.
Secondly, the team work out their OWN understanding or solutions because the facilitator:-
a. Focusses on the process of communication rather than the content
b. Never contradicts anyone, working on the principle there is no right or wrong, just information. This creates an environment where everyone feels safe to contribute.
c. Encourages contribution in to the team, rather than through the facilitator or manager of the team.
Thirdly, encouraging each person to use metaphors to explain their views or feelings which also helps bring clarity to the words used.

When approached in this way, a couple of things will happen. Firstly, if the team has developed a relationship pattern of persecutor/victim/rescuer, using this inclusive, non centralised, approach can help them move to a more productive model of feedback/outcome/action.

Secondly, any patterns in the team’s way of working will start to be revealed. And this is where the facilitator can add significant benefit. For seeing the patterns and pointing them out to the team in this encouraging, non judgmental way can really help the team understand how they work together and therefore what needs to happen for them to work even better.

Make no mistake, Clean Language used in this way is not for the faint hearted. It can be a challenging process as it can uncover some destructive patterns, but if it is going to give you the understanding and clarity you desire, it couldn’t really be anything else.

And the rewards? A team or team that is crystal clear about what happens when they are working at their best, what needs to happen for that to happen more often and how they can explain it to other teams for them to model.

If you would like to know more about how Clean Language can help your team work at their best more often, email me at Allison@macintoshwright.co.uk or call +44 7751 303835.

With thanks to: –
- David Grove, the originator of Clean Language
- Caitlin Walker and Cheryl Winter of Training Attention for their input on working with groups

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