On Board the Wrong Vessel?, by Nike ONI

Do you sometimes worry about members of your team who seem not to be fully involved and contributing their best to the team? For some reason their attitude and delivery seems to be below expectations and a far cry from other team members. What should we do with such team members, what options are available to us as leaders of such teams seeking to build our dream team and achieve our dreams? What options are available to such team members, and what can leaders and other colleagues do to support such team members?

One of the realities of people that are constantly struggling with their tasks within a team may be related to the fact that they are perhaps on the wrong vessel, on the wrong team, and doing a task that doesn’t bring out the best in them or working with a group of people in the team that do not complement them.

Team members who realize that they are on the wrong vessel are left with two options – firstly to acquire the competencies required to succeed in the team, or secondly to leave the team, and pursue their talents and interests elsewhere. The decision lies with such team members, and they must be cognisant of the fact that their underperformance affects team morale and performance, and therefore need to be honest and up-front about their weaknesses. The rest of us in the team, including its leadership should engage with such a person, identify the option chosen, and provide the necessary support for the decision and the path chosen.

Personally, I recall that while trying to get into the University, I couldn’t get my preferred course, and had to settle for something else. Though I reluctantly accepted it, I hoped I will get an opportunity to change later on. As the years rolled by I ended up graduating in this course, and remember how I received a lot of encouragement from my colleagues who knew that I wasn’t naturally cut out for it, but encouraged me nonetheless to persevere. I am grateful for the encouragement, and the success that it helped me achieve.

Should you decide to pursue the first option like I did with the support of your team, you must ask critical questions about the competencies required to succeed in that role, honestly appraise yourself against such competencies, and develop a road map for addressing the gaps. It will be a decision that will require a great amount of learning agility and a willingness to fail forward. You must also understand that like all decisions, yours will come with consequences. Until you reach your level of proficiency, you may continue to struggle with lower performance ratings, lower rewards than your other high-flying team mates, and much more hard work to put in. The trick however is to understand that the more you put in with the right attitude, the more likely you will overcome in a shorter time.

Leaders and colleagues should provide the support and reinforcement required to help you through this journey. As you make great strides, their applause and commendations will be a source of encouragement, and where you make mistakes their constructive criticism should bring out the best in you. To get this kind of support from your team and your leaders, it means that you must openly acknowledge and accept your shortcomings and reach out to them for help. Pretending that all is well and being in denial about your challenges will not engender the kind of support required from colleagues when you are aboard the wrong vessel.

The end of the year and the beginning of a new one are a good time to reflect on our journey so far to determine which members of our teams or indeed ourselves are on the wrong vessel. As described above, the decisions made and our commitments to these decisions will go a long way in determining the quality of our performance as a team in the years to come.

Give a Compliment in Public

The secrets of making the most out of the most important relationships in your life – at work, home and in our social lives are not far-fetched. In fact they are no secrets at all. If you want to unlock these secrets, a good place to start will be writing down all the things that make you feel good and lifted. I am quite sure that your long list will no doubt include – “being paid a real compliment in front of others”. Everyone loves to feel good, accepted and important from time to time, and when someone passes a real compliment about us in public, it makes us feel better, lifts our spirits and brings out the best in us.

So, why look any further in your search to bring out the best in your spouse, children, colleagues, subordinates, friends or bosses – find a real and positive thing about them, and take the next opportunity you have them to make a complimentary remark about them in public.

On a personal level, I have seen a number of leaders use this very well to make their people feel important and treasured, but I have also observed many leaders who never pay public compliments, sometimes for their own insecurities or just because they have not discovered how powerful and lifting such compliments can be. A few people I have met believe that complimenting people in private should suffice, and that there is an undertone of “trumpet blowing” and “hype” associated with public compliments. Granted that it does create a bit of hype and blows the person’s trumpet, we must realize that it is a lot better than those who blow their trumpets themselves and are continuous paying compliments to themselves in public.

Public compliments should also not be mistaken with sycophancy, which is another social ill. The line between being complimentary and sycophancy becomes clearer when the public praise is repeated, out of context or even completely untrue. Like all things even our use of public praise should be done with moderation, if not the sycophancy behind it will become obvious to all who are watching.

Our human nature sometimes pre-disposes us to sometimes only see the bad side of people, and it takes a really concerted effort to find value in our relationships especially as we battle and struggle through life. No matter how small or insignificant, even the most difficult of subordinates or bosses have some positive value that we can identify and compliment in public. The benefits are clear - just cast your minds back to a time when someone really important in your life made a public declaration of your competence. It has happened to me, and believe me, it made me feel really good!

If you sense that your relationships – at home, work and socially have been a bit strained, switch gears today, and pay a real public compliment to someone that matters, because – People Matter!

Creating a Great Place to Work, by Gbitse Barrow

Organizational leaders often speak about crafting an employee value proposition – creating a great place to work; a great place to learn, or a great place to grow. As is usual with a lot of these huge corporate transformation campaigns, plenty of money is spent, and most times the only people that come out smiling are the HR executives who can nicely tick off their performance scorecards and the consultants who got paid for designing the EVP and running internal road shows and publicity. Months down the line these superficial programmes yield very little – employee engagement remains low, and talent retention is still at risk.

Obviously there are a number of organizations who have gotten it right, but they definitely went a bit deeper than an EVP campaign and road shows. It boils down like everything else to the character of the leadership in the institution, and where this is wrong, no amount of branding or re-branding can make a change!

We are preparing this week for a trip to the ancient city of Kano, and I am really excited about visiting my favourite hotel in the world – Prince Hotel. Perhaps its owner has never sat down to think about crafting an Employee Value Proposition, but judging from my visit over 5 years ago, he has an EVP well wrapped up under his belt. Employee engagement is about incentivizing the right behaviour, rather than playing favourites with a bunch of yes men that is typical with organizational leaders today. At Prince, the hotel staff members get a big share of the service charges, so they would do everything to keep you satisfied and locked up in your rooms ordering room service all day long – It works you know! Conversely, I recall how a young employee in a bank once told me that he suffered under his boss for a while for calling her by her first name, which was the right thing to do since the organization had a first-name open-door policy. He soon learned of his “unacceptable” behaviour, began to append Aunty and “Ma” before and after her name, and soon he got a long-awaited promotion!

You may recall episodes of the award winning TV series on NTA – Super Story where a company CEO served up some specially concocted jollof rice for lunch each day at the canteen and got away with hypnotizing his employees to work without a salary. One day the spell wore off, and the attempt at manipulating employees in the short term like many of our organizational leaders try to do with myopic incentives and political camps in the workplace.

One of the saddest leadership stories around motivating employees that I remember from my own career was the end of year party where the party committee had set aside lavish gifts of microwave ovens and deep-fryers for the “managerial” cadre staff and less stylish plate sets and cup sets for the “non-managerial” cadre. I may be wrong, but I would have thought that in terms of impact the wife of one of our drivers would have been more impressed with a deep-fryer, that my wife who already could afford one and indeed still had two extra in her store from our old wedding gifts. Right thinking leaders would have either provided the same gift items for everyone or perhaps even taken the higher road and given the more junior staff the more lavish gift items. It’s just a grab-grab attitude that is becoming so pervasive. We all know you are the managers – your salary, status cars and other perks already show it. Do you have to rub it into the faces of the spouses and children of your junior colleagues even at a Year- end Party?

We have even had CEOs of Nigerian organizations who have separate elevators in their buildings, forgetting that someday when they leave the headship they have to join the regular lifts. I saw that happen in a government building in Abuja with a former minister, and had a really good laugh!

We can go on and on, but I believe the point is made, if you really want to create a great place to work you need to incentivize the right behaviour, be gracious with your employees – pay them properly, invest in their development, and most of all do not rub in the fact that you are the boss by creating all this power distance. Next time you hear about a corporate EVP programme, reflect on these real life examples of what works and what doesn’t and make sure that yours does!

Going Higher, by Nike ONI

Are you desirous of achieving great dreams or are you currently working on making one of your dreams a reality? Are you thinking about writing a book, starting your own business or doing something really great to change the world around you? Dreams... you and I may call them but they may eventually turn out to be reality. People like Wole Soyinka (the first black African Nobel Laureate), Ferdinand Magellan (the first to sail around the world), King Sunny Ade and Michael Jackson (notable musicians) etc, were men of like passion - with great dreams and desires who ensured that they used teamwork to make their dreams work.

Like you, I have some really huge dreams, but I have come to understand the bigger the dream, the better the team that I need to make it happen. In order to build our dreams and make the best of it we must realise that having the right people on board our team really matters in order to ensure that they not only connect to our dream but they also are able to key into it with great ease. For instance, I know of a close associate whose dream became a reality by sharing ideas with close family and friends and today despite still undergoing a lot of challenges he is still ensuring that he lives his dream. Not only has he made the dream a reality but has also in one way or the other gotten those who he shared his dreams with and have made meaningful contribution to it involved in its execution.

In the words of Dr John Maxwell "one mistake I've seen people repeatedly make is that they focus too much attention on their dreams and too little on their team". Building a dream team is perhaps the single most important ingredient in making your dream a reality.

Most times we are often faced with several challenges that come along with our dream. Dr John Maxwell has also identified some of these challenges and they type of teams required to tackle them:
For a New Challenge You need a Creative Team
For a Controversial Challenge You need a United Team
For a Changing Challenge
For an Unpleasant Challenge
For a diversified Challenge
For a Long - term Challenge
For a Mountain - sized Challenge You need a Fast and Flexible Team
You need a Motivated Team
You need a Complementary Team
You need a determined Team
You need an Experienced Team

Think about your current dream project and the challenges that it poses and use the correlation table to guide you around decision regarding the type of team you need, to make your dream a reality.
It is also important if you are working with a team currently to assess their ability to cope with your specific challenge(s). You may need to make additional investments in growing them, adding others to support them, or removing the ineffective ones altogether. If this doesn't work, then perhaps you may need to give up your dreams and help others achieve theirs.

In our journey to making our dreams work, we should be careful not to become - "I woulda, coulda, shoulda". We can find the cure for cancer or AIDS, or become the next President, or become the most sought after professional in our areas of competence. All we need is to put together our dream team to make our dream work.

Great Memories Strengthen Relationships

Have you ever seen siblings sit together and chat all night long, our couples sit in bed re-living fond memories of their lives together? Great memories are a good source of nourishment for our relationships. Imagine if you could re-live great memories with your colleagues, employees, bosses and important clients. You will perhaps not just create great moments of joyful nostalgia, but also help to create a stronger bond in the relationship.

While events may just occur and create the great memories for your relationships, we could be a bit more deliberate, and actually create and sustain these memories ourselves. We should therefore be passionate about creating the time, and the enabling environment for great memories to take place.

For example, imagine a boss who sits behind her chair all day, behind the closed doors of her office, compared to another who spends time on the shop floor, engaging employees and customers and creating those opportunities for an interesting joke to be shared, an important lesson to be learned or a heartfelt feeling to be shared. By being open and available, we therefore create the time and atmosphere for great memories to be made. The heartfelt feeling, joke or important lesson created as you walk around the shop floor can be that great memory and bond that brings you closer to that person.

I have a personal example with a colleague who I teased on two separate occasions about getting pregnant because she stayed at home during a strike in the first instance, and went on leave at an awkward time in the year the second time. Interestingly, I was right on both occasions - she got pregnant just within the same spaces of time. Now, when we see each other we often share the joke around the memorable moments when I teased her and it draws us closer each time.

Think about your relationship with your spouse, parents, siblings, children, colleagues at works and clients, and make a deliberate effort to create a pleasant memory. It could be a lunch or dinner outing, it could be an away-day or team building event, or something special that you do for them, or even a story or lesson that you can share. Plan to create this memory, then create it, and use the opportunities of your future interactions to re-live the memory and strengthen your relationship.

As we do this, we should also take time to think about the fond memories we already have with people, and take the next opportunity we have to re-live that memory, and create an even stronger bond. Memories can serve as great ice-breakers for people you haven't seen or spoken to in a while, and can help to re-kindle the relationship in a very enduring way.

Remember, memories are powerful things. We shouldn't wait for memories to just happen to us, rather, we need to make memories happen, and ensure that we re-live them

John Maxwell Leadership Training debuts in Abuja

The Nigerian Human Resources and Training Community in Abuja got a first-hand taste of the recently launched John C Maxwell Leadership Development Training Workshops from Learning Impact NG. At an exclusive event which was strictly by invitation, Learning Impact NG delivered one of their John Maxwell Workshops - "Winning with People", based on the best-selling work of internationally accaliamed leadership expert - Dr John C Maxwell. The one-day workshop was facilitated by the leading John Maxwell certified trainer in sub-saharan Africa and founder/CEO of Learning Impact NG, Mr Gbitse Barrow. Participants included Human Resources Directors, Personnel and Administration Directors, as well as Training Directors and Training Managers from within the public and private sector in the FCT.

The exclusive event held at the Shehu YarÁdua Center Center on Thursday,28 October and participants were taken through the most modern training delivery techniques based on experiential learning principles. Participants got an opportunity to apply the Think-Say-Do Model developed by Dr Maxwell in a number of interactive activities, case studies, group and individual activities and lecturettes from Mr Barrow.

Participants were generally excited about the programme, the quality world-class content from John Maxwell that had now been put in Nigerian context, and the excellent delivery methodology used which kept them busy for the whole day, and helped ensure that they could actually transfer some of the learnings to action in their work, personal and family lives.

Learning Impact in May 2010 acquired the exclusive license in Nigeria for John Maxwell leadership Development Workshops, and offers a unique range of Leadership Development Workshops and other proprietary workshops for Human Resources and Training Professionals. In a press statement issued at the end of the event, the Company's Head of Research and Publications, Ms Nike Oni was pleased with the turn-out and reception that the Abuja HR fraternity had given the John Maxwell brand in Nigeria, citing that the event was over-subscribed, which made organizing it quite challenging. She was confident that the Company will ensure that it's programmes help to lift the lid on leadership in Nigeria, based on its aspirations and the strategic vision of its founders and international partner - Dr John C Maxwell.

The Company's Head of Sales, Mr Abioye OKE also revealed that the Company will be taking its Signature Programmes to Lagos on 12 November to the even more interested HR and Training fraternity in Lagos, where again the event seems well-subscribed. According to Mr Oke, the John Maxwell quality in leadership development is second to none, and we are encouraged by the support from our colleagues, and look forward to helping organizations in Nigeria build positive influence in their people and work ethic".

Leaders need Others - So Do You!

Think about your current leadership role or any times in the past where despite your best efforts and intentions, you were not getting the level of motivation and engagement from your team members or your employees. The symptoms include taking on too much work, having to take responsibility for almost every decision, and poor quality of output from a team that otherwise has the skills to perform. One of the reasons for this may just be that your team does not feel needed. A recent survey of employees that we conducted suggests that there is a correlation between the feeling of being needed by one’s leaders, and the level of engagement and productivity of an employee.

Everyone has an “ego” need, the need to feel appreciated and needed as part of an organization or system - the desire to make a contribution, and receive recognition for this contribution. According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy, this need is part of the evolution of an individual’s motivation, but of course varies by degree from one person to another, and perhaps in different situations. Our research shows that a particularly vulnerable group, are new employees or new joiners to a team that are eagerly expecting feedback on their performance on the new team.

On the other side of the vulnerability it is common to find people in leadership positions or positions of authority ascribe their entire success to their own efforts. Entrepreneur CEOs, pioneering business people, inventors and outstanding athletes may think of their effort as singular in achieving and sustaining their current status and future achievements. Some leaders therefore fail to acknowledge or perhaps encourage the input of others to their success, and therefore have to struggle with disengaged, underperforming staff and a truck load of work. In reality, all of our achievements come from God, and as He has proven through time, He uses the people around us to influence us to actually achieve our goals.

Some Generational Theorists also suggest that the “Y Generation” which constitutes the growing population of the workforce today are “recognition freaks”, and the absence of adequate recognition takes the wind out of their sails.

No matter how powerful, successful or intelligent you are, you need the help of others to succeed. No matter how small the help we receive, we must acknowledge that other people play a key role in our success. To get more from the people around you, you need to show them how much you appreciate and need what they do. Everyone likes to feel needed. A feeling of being needed is often more treasured or valued than monetary compensations or rewards. It is at the heart of intrinsic motivation. Leaders who are not confident and comfortable in their abilities pretend that they can do anything and everything, with or without the input of others. Leaders who are mature and authentic recognize the support and help that others provide to them.

Leaders have to be deliberate about conveying how much they need others and can achieve this by:

• Thanking and appreciating the people around us for the work that they do;
• Not making statements that suggest that with or without others you can succeed;
• Challenge them with stretch assignments, and show them that you have confidence in their ability to perform these tasks;
• Allow yourself to be vulnerable and allow those around you to take responsibility and rise to the occasion;
• Seek their input when making important decisions, and reflect their opinions in the decisions you take, and when you do, let them know.

Earlier in my career, our CEO would usually engage the newest and youngest members of the team to make contributions and proffer solutions at meetings. As a young team member, it made me feel wanted, in fact - needed, almost as if without me that decision couldn’t be taken. It encouraged me and many others to sincerely challenge ourselves to think of newer and better ways, and send our opinions to the top management team whenever we could.

Leaders can learn from this example, and the potential impact that needing others can have on employee engagement and productivity, and start to work on any of the tips above in the days and weeks ahead.

Communicating is Beyond Words

Many of us may have had the opportunity of watching one of these TV shows where contestants compete in a singing competition – “Pop Idols, Naija Sings, and Project Fame.” A few times clusters of participants are given a challenge to sing the same song, expectedly done with very different results. The same goes for trainers/teachers facilitating a workshop/class – same content, different appeal; or even business leaders reading out a speech or broadcasters reading the same news on the television. Although in all these situations, the communication is based on the same content (words), it is clear to see who is really communicating with impact, and it is beyond the words.

Effective and impactful communication therefore goes beyond your words. While the words you use are very important your audience has to sieve through the delivery of those words first, and this involves other components that you have to pay attention to. Albert Merhabian, a renowned American psychologist’s research further confirms this. According to him, an audience’s total “liking” of a message (their positive response to it) is made up of 7% verbal (words), 38% vocal (tone) and 55% facial (body language). It means therefore that beyond your words, you should be very concerned about your tonality and body language as you communicate.

Communication therefore has physical and emotional components that have to be contextualized to make it impactful. If your words are not carried within the right physical delivery and emotional context – they become merely words, sometimes empty and only with a 7% chance of being liked by your audience, no matter how much “big grammar” you use.

Going back to the example of singers, trainers, and broadcasters, you can therefore see clearly what gives the very best of these the winning edge. On a personal note, I remember my best and worst speaking events, and the difference is always about how I am able to connect with my audience emotionally, and display a physical presence and connection with them. Surely, saying the right words, and getting your diction right are important, but in the game of public speaking either as a performing musician, politician, public speaker, trainer or broadcaster, everyone expects you to have the right words and diction as a minimum pre-requisite. If you are still struggling with getting the words right, it is almost impossible for example to make it past the audition in a singing competition. In fact Merhabian’s research is gaining stronger ground these days as nobody even knows the lyrics of popular music any longer; it is much more about the beat (tone) and the performance (body language) of the artiste.

To make the emotional connection, your words have to have meaning to the audience, and this even applies in written communication. Using stories and real-life experiences or true to life examples that your audience can latch on to will help make that connection. Don’t write in too much of the abstract, bring home the story with examples that are well known to the audience, and be audience-centric. Using your personal situations and examples also helps the audience to see that your content is not too “theoretical” but that indeed you have real life personal experience – good or bad of the issues. Also, learn to vary and control the tone of your voice and capture the emotions of the underlying words appropriately as you speak. Some speakers go through emotionally charged content with the same consistent flat tone, unable to ride the highs and lows of the content as they deliver. A great remedy for this is to practice inflexion with singing, especially nursery rhymes and children’s songs that have a lot of undulating high and low notes. I think that the time spent watching and singing along on Sesame Street and the Sound of Music with my girls has helped in this regard, and is something I still do.

Connecting physically means that your body language has to be respectful, engaging and confident. Managing the thin line between arrogance and confidence is particularly important. Also, in a bid to be respectful, speakers need to manage the delicate balance between sympathy and empathy. While we empathize with our audience, we must respectfully remain in charge and not over-sympathize and yield to all their needs. You see some teachers, trainers and facilitators get so sympathetic, that they are completely worn out by their audience and this affects their physical delivery and connection. To physically connect, we also need to stay focused on the audience, make eye contact, and use an appropriate amount of gesticulation and movement to convey the words that we speak.

Making a connection with your audience - individual or a group is beyond your words. Getting the words right is important, but quite frankly almost taken for granted. The real impact is felt in the emotional and physical connection. Make sure you make the right physical and emotional connection in your next speaking event (even a one-on-one with your boss, subordinate or client), and communicate with impact!

Leadership is a Process, by Gbitse Barrow

Do you have a boss, supervisor, manager or CEO who doesn’t meet your expectations as a leader? Are you concerned that your new boss or manager doesn’t have the right attitude, knowledge, skills and behaviour to lead, or are you worried that despite many years in a position of leadership, your boss continues to fall short of everyone’s expectations? These are real life scenarios that play out each day in our workplaces, businesses and communities. Even on a larger scale in society, how satisfied are we of our civil and political leaders and their abilities to lead us effectively and towards success?

If you are dealing with a leader similar to the ones described above, or you suspect that you may be indeed that positional leader who is falling short of the expectation, one of the most important lessons you must learn about leadership is that it is a process, and not an event. Leaders grow each day, and leadership is in itself a journey. The mere fact that you have won an election, started a new business, married a wife,gotten a promotion, or arrived at a position of leadership doesn’t make you a leader. Authentic leadership is about a life-long commitment to learning and transformational change, which is required for you to create the positive influence and success required of you as a leader.

Some of the challenges we have with ourselves as leaders, as well as with our positional leaders is because we haven’t recognized and understood that Leadership is a process and a journey. Through this journey of leadership leaders need to grow and become more aware of themselves by reflecting, asking questions, and getting feedback from the people they lead. The new learnings from this process will enable them adopt different styles and approaches and engage their followers more effectively. A lot of leaders jettison this process, and believe that having arrived at their positions they would all of a sudden achieve a “god-status”, and that all the powers and successes that “leaders” have will suddenly become theirs.

A great example of what I am describing can best be seen when a new leader is promoted from within the team. How can you be so myopic to believe that from the first day you will gain everyone’s respect or buy-in; how can you fit into the shoes of the previous leader so quickly; how can you heal all the wounds of the past and move forward? Honestly, these things take time, which if you do not apply yourself to as a systematic process, may indeed take forever, or actually never happen. A lot of new leaders who were great team members and performers fail to recognize this and fail woefully in their first leadership assignments. I have seen people fall into this trap, and struggle to retrace their steps quickly enough and learn the competencies required to be leaders. Some of them escape, wobble and fumble along to higher positions of leadership, but carry with them forever, the scars of their leadership events, rather than the learnings and changes required of a leadership journey.

Look around today, and think about those examples of positional leaders who are not effective leaders, there is perhaps a lesson or two that can be learned from their first leadership events or positions. As you look at newly appointed or elected leaders who seem not to have what it takes – do endeavour to give them a chance and support them through their journeys. If they are committed to life-long learning and transformational learning like all great leaders should be, then their journey to leadership, although challenging will be blessed with success in the long-run.

As we look around us, we must also look at ourselves, and ask the pertinent questions – How have I dealt with my past and current leadership positions? Is leadership just an event, or am I in a committed systematic process of growing each day as a leader? Whatever your answers may be, just remember that you can re-trace your steps and create a real leadership journey as you continue to grow as leader. Focus on continuous learning, feedback and a willingness to change, and be committed, deliberate and systematic about it!

The 30 Second Rule

Have you ever wondered what it will feel like to be regarded as a master conversationist and what a tremendous difference it will make in your work or life? Imagine the most successful business and political leaders, sales and marketing professionals, pastors or imams who have mastered the art of great conversations. First impressions they say – last the longest, and create the most impact. Master conversationists like John C Maxwell have further realized that the first 30 seconds can make or mar a conversation and an entire relationship.

When sales people engage a prospect or a client, or when business or political leaders meet and speak to their people, or when service personnel interact with a client, the first 30 seconds makes a great difference. So, how do we typically open a sales call, or a performance feedback session, or a letter or email to a client? Often times we focus on ourselves, hoping to hit the nail on the head and score the much required quick win in the first few seconds of our verbal and written communications. Great conversationists instead of bragging about themselves, their achievements, products or services, spend the first 30 seconds making the other person feel good about themselves.

The golden rule teaches us to treat others as we will like to be treated, so tell me who wouldn’t like to hear something encouraging, thoughtful or even mildly flattering at the beginning of a conversation. When we open our letters, wouldn’t it be great to get a note of thanks from the writer about our previous meeting or letter; when we sit in an appraisal, wouldn’t we like to have our manager open with some encouraging remarks about our work and achievements to date. Well if the answer is yes, then this is exactly the discipline we must learn about opening our own conversations with others.
People feel good when you give them your attention at the beginning of a conversation, and when you are actually focused on them, and not yourself. The 30 second Rule according to Dr Maxwell requires us to spend the first 30 seconds of every conversation giving your attention, providing affirmation, and showing your appreciation to the next person. Each time we do this, you can just feel the person’s energy level and motivation hitting the roof. People who have mastered this art, are always liked and likeable, because everyone loves people who raise their spirits, energy levels and levels of motivation.

People matter, and to win with people requires some deliberate effort in making the best impression right at the beginning. Many people misconstrue putting your best foot forward, as being aggressive about your accomplishments or positive qualities – nothing could be much farther from the truth. Be deliberate; spend time thinking about that other-person-centric opening that you will give to your next conversation. I tried one today, and it really worked – “Hi, I really love the decor in your office, very impressive”, as I made my way into a prospect’s office. The key is to be realistic, spontaneous, yet authentic. Be careful not to come across as rude or over-flattering, but most importantly just do it, and WIN with People!

It's not about You!

I haven’t shared this story with many people, but I almost gave up on studying accounting after two years at the University of Lagos. I was doing quite well in the more general subjects, but was struggling in my core accounting subjects. Our financial accounting lecturer contributed in no small measure to this. He was obviously a well-grounded lecturer in accounting, but spent most of the lecture time facing the chalk board, and racing from one end of it to another, turning back once in a while to see most of us utterly confused or making jest of the entire classroom proceedings. As the lectures went on, he would ask questions, and inevitably answer them himself. His teaching style was focused on himself, and it was no surprise that yours truly and quite a good number of his students were not connecting to his classes, and were lagging behind in our grades.

On a more personal note, I learned in my years as a facilitator, and public speaker to be more audience centric drawing from that experience from Unilag. In the early years of the pension industry in Nigeria in 2006, rival Pension Fund Administrators (“PFAs”) would typically be given an opportunity to pitch their services to staff members of the prospect-organization in a town-hall “contest”. Those were perhaps the most fun days of my banking career. I do remember a particular occasion where the number of PFAs had grown from about 7 to 12 or thereabouts, and our host organization had to prune the time slots allotted to each PFA from the usual 30 minutes each to about 10 minutes. It was interesting to watch my colleagues from other PFAs struggle to go through their 72 page power-point slide decks in 10 minutes. Impossible – Yes, but they weren’t thinking too seriously about the audience, and thought that perhaps they could over-run the time, or perhaps do the impossible and squeeze in all that detail into 10 minutes. For most it was a disaster!

As I led our presentation, I decided to ditch power-point, to the great surprise and trepidation of my colleagues, and jotted down 5 points on a piece of paper which later became – ‘the 5 reasons to choose IBTC”, and just spoke to the audience. We delivered in 7 minutes, the clients were happy, we were happy, and trust me, we won! As the industry grew larger and more competitive, we cut down our slide deck into a 5 minute presentation, and named it “IBTC Presentation – 5 minutes”, all in a bid to be audience-centric. Two or three years later when I was leaving the industry, I still found that some of our rival PFAs were still using their 72 page slide decks for 5 minute time slots, but thankfully, a number of them had caught on to the 5 minute presentation templates with fewer slides.

The point is simple – communicating and connecting with people is not about you, your slides, or your fancy presentation. Your audience, be they your students, colleagues, prospects or clients should be the center and focus of your presentation. A combination of immaturity, ego, insecurity or an absolute lack of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking sometimes forces us to focus too much on ourselves while communicating, rather than on the audience.

Earlier on in my speaking career, when I was younger, I often felt so good about the content I was delivering that I seldom cared about whether or not my audience was participating. I just delivered my “perfectly scripted” presentations and awaited the applause from the audience. I often spoke too much and outside the allotted time, and tried to use my talkative nature as an excuse. Somewhere between my ego and immaturity, I like many others just loved to hear my own voice. Nowadays as I facilitate, I take a 2 minute break every 20 minutes to ask – “any questions”, and really try to encourage participation from the audience. I currently employ a variety of engagement approaches including walking around, sitting in the middle of the class, and getting participants to co-facilitate, and most importantly, I try to keep within the allotted time, and indeed talk less. In one-on-one conversations, I often used to dominate every conversation, and was very opinionated. As I built my interest in coaching, I learned that asking engaging questions, practicing active listening and being less prescriptive actually allowed people to “Think for a Change”, and come to realize their full potential by themselves, rather than rely on your “expert” opinions. I also found there was so much more to learn from others.

According to John Maxwell, every time we are in front of an audience – our clients, prospects, colleagues or students, we should reflect on three questions that the audience will like to see you answer in the affirmative before you can make a real connection:
• Do you care for me?
• Can you help me?
• Can I trust you?

If your communication style doesn’t show a genuine care for people, a desire to help them or the fact that you are authentic and can be trusted, it is no surprise that you aren’t winning the hearts of the people you are engaging. The key to impactful communication is not in just being eloquent or having a good command of language. It is really about showing that you care by being audience centric, providing help in a non-prescriptive manner, and building trust by being open about your foibles, and sharing some of your personal struggles and stories.

Remember these three audience expectations next time you have a one-on-one or group conversation, and watch your connections grow!

Influence Matters

Organizations often make the mistake of promoting very good sales or technical people to leadership positions without addressing the core issues of their leadership competencies. An excellent sales or operations officer will not necessarily become a great Sales Manager or Operations Director – as there is much more to being a leader than being competent at what you do. Organizations expect that when people arrive at positions of leadership, they will suddenly become leaders, but we all know it doesn’t work out that way. It is no surprise therefore that we often talk about a lot of technically competent people who are not very good at managing teams and leading people. A look around our organizations will reveal that a good number of our positional leaders have no business being in leadership positions at all, and a lot of time is spent by very senior leaders, human resources professionals and coaches to try to build leadership competencies in people who already occupy leadership positions but are already falling short of the expectations, at a huge cost and loss to the organization, and much to the detriment of the lives and careers of the people who they have to lead.

It is also interesting to hear people generally think of leadership training in terms of being focused on people in positions of leadership, rather than thinking about how to build leaders throughout the organization. I have even heard people argue that it is unwise to have too many leaders in an organization (what they must really mean is having too many positional leaders, as we will see below – can you ever have too much of a really good thing?). At the heart of this misnomer is the fact that most people are not clear about what leadership truly is, and how to measure it. On a personal note, my first experience in a leadership position was quite challenging, as I expect it would be for most 25 year olds given the responsibility of supervising 5 people who are all older than they are. I think I was really lucky to have soon learned what leadership really was and how to focus on that most important part of leadership. I didn’t become a leader when I became a Regional Manager, that actually only happened when I began the journey to becoming a person of influence, a journey which is continuous and will God-willing continue all through my life.

Leadership in the words of John Maxwell is Influence – nothing more and nothing less. The earlier we learn how to become a person of positive influence, the better we will be able to cope in leadership positions and grow progressively in our institutions. Forward thinking institutions and leaders must realize that influence skills need to be pervasive in the workplace for the organization to meet its objectives. Influence is about connecting with people, and getting them to achieve the organization’s goals. Influence matters and is applicable to entry level, senior, middle management, executives; as well as to sales people, middle-office or back-office employees. Influence is about making things happen in a broader organizational context – and that is exactly what real leaders do, irrespective of what position they occupy!

Quite an interesting number of organizations tout ‘leadership” as one of their core values or strategies but myopically think about it as something that people become when they attain a particular status or somewhere the organization gets to when it attains a position in its industry.

There needs to be a paradigm shift around what leadership means to individuals and organizations, and we all need to do a bit more to actually build influence throughout our organization and people, irrespective of their positions or titles. Early investments in leadership development and influence skills for younger professionals or even for students will go a long way in ensuring that when people do arrive in positions of leadership, they have already climbed up a few steps to higher levels of leadership. In fact, positional leadership is the most pedestrian level of leadership. Everyone occupies a leadership position – father, mother, husband, wife, teacher, trainer, director, manager, pastor, and priest – but how many of us are real leaders? Our people need to grow beyond their positions or lack thereof, and learn to lead by permission, production, people development and ultimately by personhood – the highest level of leadership where we sit at the height of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and allow our self actualization to reflect in all our relationships and interactions.

We have learnt that like life, leadership is a process, and not a series of events, and our commitment to building influence matters and needs to start earlier rather than later. So if you haven’t started, NOW is a great time!

Win With Yourself

People matter - it is no surprise therefore that at the heart of every significant success or woeful failure is a great relationship or a damaged one, respectively. Success therefore lies in your ability to win with people - your clients, prospects, colleagues, staff members, regulators, everyone and anyone. But before we start looking out to win with people, an important first step is to WIN with OURSELVES!

There are many common sayings that reflect the truism behind this thought - "you cannot give what you do not have", "love your neighbour as you love yourself" (you have to love yourself first). It's interesting but true - I watched a TV documentary the other day when a fireman asked the presenter - 'What do you think is the number one lesson you learn as a fireman?", and the presenter answered - "To save other people", "Wrong" responded the fireman, "you learn to save yourself". After all how can you save others if you haven't saved yourself? "Remove the speck in your eye before you talk about the log in others".

To win with you begins with four critical steps in self-discovery around your value. Think about a N500 note for a second, like the one crumpled and stashed away in the Sunday collection box, or twisted and curled up in the satchel around Mama Put's waist. Like it or not that N500 remains N500, no matter how rumpled and squeezed it is. Its value is not determined by its physical state or beauty, instead it is a function of what it is really worth, and what it can achieve. So too is the value of a human being, and indeed ourselves. We need to RECOGNIZE our value and see it beyond our physical looks, external appearances or material well-being. We must define our value based on who we truly are, what we represent, and what we can achieve.

An interesting part of our humanity are our insecurities and foibles, the things we are not very good at, which often create negative thoughts around our self-worth. Despite these "issues" that life brings, we need to ACCEPT our value, and who we really are. Too many times we get distracted by our insecurities, rather than face them and get better at them. To Win with ourselves we need to move further and INCREASE our value by getting rid of the self-limiting beliefs that these insecurities bring. I have heard people say things like - I am just a secretary, I am not an oga; I don't like maths; I am afraid of speaking in public. Remember, you said it, not anyone else. These self limiting beliefs place a lid on yourself and constrain your ability to increase your value.

The final step is to BELIEVE in your value. Package it, refine it, sell it and get paid for it. Never sell yourself cheap or short. You have a unique value that you bring and it is critical to reflect this as you go on along the journey of life. I remember struggling earlier in my career with getting appointments to see Chief Executives of Government parastatals, and getting through their secretaries. I later learned to wear a smile, pray, and think well of myself, and the value that my bank and I were bringing to the parastatal. Once I did, and won the battle within myself, my value began to work for me, as I am sure it would for you.

Influence Brings Recognition, by NIKE Oni

"One is too small a number to achieve Greatness" John Maxwell
The entire concept of a "self-made man" is one of the greatest fallacies of life. Indeed, one is too small a number to achieve success, and if we think about it, all the greatly successful people we know worked with a team to achieve their success. Even as he sat alone in solitary confinement for a good part of his prison life, Mandela's success could not have been achieved without the "team" of ANC members inside and outside the prison, who he frequently communicated with using secret letters and messages. Even when the means of conveying these secret messages was truncated, the virtual team work continued, as the team understood each other so well.
In the workplace, we find many managers who supposedly lead a team, but in reality are lone rangers. It is no surprise therefore that they struggle to achieve success, and gain the recognition for all their toil and hard work. The problem isn't that they are not smart or hard working; it is rather that they are attempting to achieve success without involving their team. Like Mandela, great team leaders not only achieve success, but actually get most of the recognition and attention, which as hard as they try to share with the rest of the team; the world continues to give them the accolades.
If you are struggling with success in your team at work, perhaps you should start asking; how much of a team player or team leader you really are? There are four clear reasons why many of us fail to leverage the full potential of our teams and by extension limit our success potential. Some of us are caught up in our ego. I once heard a CEO say to his management team that I am always right, I have all the ideas, all the solutions, and with or without you, I will be fine". It's no surprise that his team is not very creative, does not challenge his thinking, and that the company's potential is limited. There are other leaders who are just naïve about the limitations of their capabilities, and never tap into the potential and prospects of their teams. In their naivety, they find out way too late, that indeed the world does not revolve around them.
The worst case of this problem is with leaders who are insecure. Their greatest fear is that one of their team members will surpass their abilities. Leaders who are insecure are really lazy and incompetent, and are not willing to take up new challenges, or break new barriers. Even if your staffs tries to catch up with you because of what you have invested in them, you will always be on the lead yourself, because as you let go of smaller things, you will rise to greater ones.
Sometimes our natural temperament and disposition, do not allow us to get the best of our working with others in a team. A great example of someone who must have over-come this, is Mr Bill Gates himself, who is reputed to have Asperger syndrome, which is a condition that naturally limits social skills in people. Despite Asperger, Mr Gates has gone on to build perhaps the most potent team in the world by gathering people of diverse skills, and interests, buying out young innovators and integrating them into the Microsoft team.
Personally, I have had situations in my former place of work, where my temperament had not allowed me to connect with my team. Yes, I had it all within me, but found it quite difficult to relate ideas with my team because I always felt they were insignificant to the work in question, only to find out when it was too late that, just that 'little' could have made a great impact.
Dear Manager, struggling to achieve success all by yourself, even those with naturally mitigating factors like Bill Gates have conquered their temperament, and built great teams. I think it's time to link up and subdue your ego, rise above your naivety, and set aside your insecurity, to build your team, achieve the success that seems to elude you, and get the recognition that you desire.

Connecting Creates Influence

“If I went back to college, I’d concentrate on three areas – learning to write and learning to speak to an audience”, US President Gerald Ford

Even a former US President Gerald Ford understood the importance of impactful communication and the difference it would have made on his political career. Many professionals struggle through their careers with similar handicaps. Few however ever realize that there is a much deeper perspective to communication than writing or speaking well. The real essence is in making connections.

I recall while on a shuttle-bus ride from the Hotel to the Johannesburg Airport, how a gentleman joined us on the board and completely turned the foul mood in a bus full of passengers who had missed their connecting flights from the previous night. As he walked into the moving bus, he wore a warm and friendly smile, shouted out a confident “Hello”, and began to chat with the passenger next to him. He turned around, greeted us all with a thumbs-up gesture, and it almost began to feel like we had met before. He immediately connected with us, and before we could say – “Jack Robins’, we were all laughing (or at least smiling) and being more positive about our dilemma. We learned during our ensuing conversations that he was a staff of the very same airline that had put us in that mess, and quite honestly, after connecting with him in this way, I didn’t feel like I was angry at the airline any longer, and so did a good number of us on the bus. I learned valuable lessons on connecting on this day, and I will share some of them as follows:

• Connecting creates influence, and is important in winning with people and achieving success (like the gentleman did)
• You can change a bad situation to a great one by being deliberate about connecting with the people involved.(like he changed our situation)
• Communication is beyond listening, speaking or writing – it is really about connecting (it wasn’t about how eloquent or how correct, it was about how well he connected)
• A positive attitude always ensures that you connect (positivity is infectious, that gentleman infected us quickly)
• Your attitude is conveyed in your body language, eye contact and your tone, and not much in your words or writings (The thumbs up, smile and confident tone did it all)
• Body language, eye contact and tonality are a reflection of your interest in others, if you are not interested in people, you cannot connect (he was definitely interested in cheering up his stranded customers)
• A great many academics, politicians, scholars (for example) are good at writing and speaking, but how many of them actually connect (he was just a lay man)

Four simple things we can remember as we learn to connect, and embark on our journey of positive influence are:
1. To connect, we must truly value people and connect with them;
2. Once we do, our body language, tonality and eye contact will reflect this;
3. When we write and speak, we must focus on the audience, and attempt to establish a real “connection”; and
4. We can achieve these and much more by being deliberate and focused about connecting.

Even as I share these words, I am focused on a number of friends and colleagues that I have seen struggle with communicating and connecting, and my sincere desire is to have made a connection with you, and by so doing influenced you to make better CONNECTIONS!

Leadership determines Success

Most leaders will agree that the root cause of almost every business challenge can be traced to the quality of leadership. Discussions at EXCO, MANCO or Board Meetings often dovetail to something that “leadership could have done better”. It’s either the leaders are not communicating effectively, they are not giving proper direction, or that leadership is not motivating the people, managing performance or creating the appropriate incentives for the followers. It is therefore not far-fetched to agree with John C Maxwell when he says – “everything rises and falls on leadership”.
In reality, organizations and individuals are quite in tune with this. For example when a soccer team fails to impress or a corporate scandal occurs, the first casualties are usually the Coach/Team Manager or the CEO, and the entire C-Suite respectively. Waiting till the team loses or the bank collapses to decapitate its positional leaders, may amount to leaving things till it’s too late. Rather, we must focus on raising our chances of success by lifting the lid on individual and organizational leadership, while we can.
Looking back for example at the recent scandal around the Nigerian banking industry, the banks’ leaders could have saved their banks well before Mallam Sanusi’s clamp down, if they had imbibed some principles of values-based leadership. Even at their lowest ebb, authentic leaders could have made personal sacrifices, and shown courage in confronting the issues bedevilling their banks. It is these values amongst other leadership principles and qualities that we all need to imbibe if we are truly to achieve success. From the nature of the scandals, it is clear to see that the banks’ leaders tried albeit unsuccessfully to achieve success without values-based leadership.
Trying to achieve success without focusing on leadership is an effort in futility. No matter how hard a man works, a lack of visionary leadership, people development and positive influence (the hallmarks of leadership) will limit your success potential. At the height of success, the story of Nigeria’s Super Eagles in 1994 was all about the inspirational leadership of the Coach, Clemens Westerhoof. His leadership must have made the difference, as it was still the same set of players whose performances in the years to come dwindled significantly under less-potent leadership.
Think about the most sustainably successful individuals, families, organizations and societies today and you will clearly see visionary and influential leadership. Behind every success story, is quality leadership – nothing more, nothing less!
The first step in your leadership journey should begin with this awareness of the impact of leadership on your personal/organizational success. A next step will be to support your awareness with a fervent desire to become a better leader and achieve your success potential. We all have a God given ability to lead, so all that will be left for our journey will be the appropriate tools and resources, and creating an environment to hone and practice our leadership skills.

Coaching 1-2-3

Coaching is a powerful tool for transforming lives, and unlocking the God-potential that lies in each of us. The coaching framework can be applied at work, home and in our social lives to help our colleagues, family members and friends be better, and achieve their goals. There are three distinct things about coaching that sets it apart from other performance focused interventions like training, counselling or mentoring, as follows: 1) Coaching is non-prescriptive: when you coach someone, you cannot be prescriptive or give direct advice to the person. if you have to give advice, you must clarify that the person need not take your advice, and that the ultimate decision lies with the coachee. Unlike trainers or consultants, coaches are not necessarily experts in a particular field. the coach's role is to help you reach your full potential without being prescriptive. 2) Coaching asks Powerful Questions. Coaching is all about asking questions that help people find themselves, and realize their potential. Great coaches ask stimulating and thought provoking questions like - Where do you see yourself in 3 years? How can you describe top performance, etc. 3) Coaching inspires us to think: We often want others to think for us and solve our problems for us. Coaching recognizes the God potential in us all and challenges us to think and spend time thinking. To learn more about coaching, go to www.learningimpactng.com