Business Workouts

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“The figures speak for themselves about half of all small businesses fail in the first 4 years – so in whatever industry you work you need all the help you can get to succeed”

– Sir Richard Branson

Our Business Workout Programs are for Solo Entrepreneurs and Sole Traders who mean serious business and really want to grow their business revenue. Ideal for small business owners already up and running or in the process of setting up.

These Business Workout Programs are designed to meet  specific business challenges that will develop your business growth. Contact us now to discuss a package that suits your needs, budget and will get you results.

Our aim is to make professional business coaching affordable to all small businesses.

But hurry as we are limiting the places on each workout to ensure participants get the maximum benefit and individual support.

 

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending”

– Carl Bard

How is your Attitude today?

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Did you make any New Year Resolutions? How are you progressing?

Would it surprise you to know, that in the UK 78{2d8ca8a57a2be9c4e7c5f608c633b8d2972cbc20ea13f00e48eca0a2f3e4a9f8} of people who make New Year resolutions fail to meet their goal, according to a study by the University of Bristol. Other research indicates that the majority of us will have given up on our resolutions 4 weeks into the New Year even though the goals may be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time phased.)

Goals are often not met when one vital catalytic ingredient is missing: Motivation. Your motivation gives you the energy and the persistence to keep going and take whatever actions are necessary to reach your goal.

Motivation is needed in everything you do, regardless of whether the goals are personal or business orientated. Only you can supply the motivation, as it comes from deep within and therefore only you can influence how much motivation you apply to your daily actions.

The first step in ensuring that you reach your goal is to understand what fuels your motivation and what drains your motivation. Your motivation is fuelled by

  • creating a strong desire to achieve your goal,
  • possessing a strong positive attitude and
  • having lots of confidence.

If you are lacking in any one of these qualities, you will not experience the same levels of success that could be attainable in reaching your goal. In fact you are most likely to be a contributor towards the 78{2d8ca8a57a2be9c4e7c5f608c633b8d2972cbc20ea13f00e48eca0a2f3e4a9f8} statistic.

Out of the three motivational ingredients needed, attitude is the most influential, impacting on both your desire and confidence levels.

Your attitude comes from your thoughts, feelings, evaluations and experiences influencing your beliefs about yourself and the values you hold, which in turn impact on your behaviour. These values represent what you believe to be true and do not need a rational or logical explanation to justify them. We each behave in accordance with our beliefs as if they were true, thus making them true. Examples of attitude influencing behaviours include not walking under ladders or stepping on paving slab cracks if we believe it to be unlucky, no further self-explanations are needed.

Therefore, if you believe at a subconscious level your goal is not achievable, chances are, you are right. This means no matter how SMART your goals are, until you believe that you can achieve that goal, the thought of taking actions will drain your motivational energy because of your subconscious belief. To believe you can achieve that goal you need to have a strong positive attitude to match.

Your attitude fuels and strengthens your beliefs and it does not matter whether your beliefs empower or limit you. Be consciously aware of what your beliefs are, and whether these beliefs are helping or hindering your progress.

The good news is, it is easy to change your attitude in order to generate a high motivational energy state to ensure that you reach your goal. You can change your attitude, provided you are totally committed and brave enough to do so. The key is to reprogram your beliefs by being positive and open minded. Reprogram your embedded beliefs by continuously focussing on positive and empowering thoughts. Rephrase any negative beliefs you have about yourself into strong positive affirmations. Instead of telling yourself “I can’t, it is impossible”, tell yourself “I can and it is possible”.

Once you have mastered positive thinking, combine it with a strong desire to achieve your goal and create an empowering belief to grow your confidence and then experience your motivation grow and your goals being smashed.

So how is your attitude today impacting on you achieving your goals?

Do you have the Essential Qualities and Skills of a Good Leader?

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We all recognise good leaders, but have you ever stopped to think what are the essential qualities and skills that are common to all good leaders?

In fact, these qualities which we admire so much in others are also inside of all of us and the real question is how much time and effort do we invest in our own personal development to develop our skills.

Good leadership includes being innovative, knowledgeable, taking initiatives and being a good communicator; but in addition it is having the ability to inspire others, involve others and be able to implement your vision. The most important quality is the ability to be true to yourself. You cannot fake inspiring and involving others, people are either engaged with your vision or they are not.

There are many theories on leadership from the “Great Man” theories, through to trait, behaviour, situational, participative, management and relationship theories to name a few of the classic works. In my view, it doesn’t matter what the theories say because it is about you, your style, your personality, your temperament, your attitude and your values. The functions of leadership include: setting objectives, planning, communicating, organising, reviewing, challenging and direction setting and only you know how well you perform in each of these areas. You may argue that this is the same list for managers, so what is the difference?

From a business perspective leaders lead growth and managers manage operations, a more insightful comparison is from a people’s perspective: management is achieving through others, whereas leadership is shaping and directing the behaviours of others. Leaders influence attitudes, skills, knowledge by which people translate their activity into mutually desirable goals.

It is the qualities of leadership that puts it into context. The essential qualities include:

  • Courage -Not being afraid to challenge or to be different. Being confident in the risk of your decision.
  • Integrity – Conveying a sense of standard and values that you adhere to, it is important that people can trust you and they can only trust you if they know what you stand for.
  • Enthusiasm -Would you follow anyone who lacks enthusiasm? Do I really need to elaborate?
  • Warmth – A warm personality is infectious and engaging; a cold and unapproachable person is generally not appreciated. In fact the intentions of anyone who does not display a warm and welcoming personality often find their intentions are misinterpreted.
  • Calmness – It is very important to be able to instil a sense of authority and knowledge. This is what people want when the pressure is on.
  • Tough/firm – A fine balance of being focussed on the vision and steering everyone towards it without being too autocratic or too laissez-faire. It is knowing where you need to be on a sliding scale between these two extremes that is appropriate for a given situation.

People welcome leaders who inspire confidence, are worthy of their trust, competent and forward looking. In addition, businesses welcome potential leaders in the making who display business competence, strategic thinking, influential communication, competent project and risk management, people and stakeholder engagement skills and above all else, a safe pair of hands into which they can trust the company growth.

To succeed as good leader you do need to be quite adept at being able to deliver on projects with fewer resources while balancing the team’s needs and developing their skills with their own project responsibilities, as well as being able to keep yourself up-to-date on industry advances and develop yourself personally and professionally. A good leader will have competent skills in the following areas:

  • Financial management and planning
  • Negotiation and Influence
  • Strategy and Vision
  • Communication and Presentation
  • Personal Effectiveness
  • People and Team Management

By assessing your own skills against the above list, can you identify where you need to focus your development?

This is a question only you can answer. But remember there is not one type of leader but many. We all have the essential qualities of a good leader, should we choose to display them and we can all develop the skills to be a good leader, should we choose to do so.

Why your Boss is Programmed to be a Dictator

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This is a brilliant book, which applies Systems Thinking to boss behaviour, written by Chetan Dhruve.

I found this book an excellent read explaining how bosses do not set out to be dictators. The author is certainly not analysing bosses’ behaviours, instead he explores how the systems in place influence bosses to behave in the way they do. I challenge you not to find any similarities with at least one of the case studies in this book with what you have experienced in your workplace.

Two particular studies that grabbed my attention were the Stanford Prison Experiment (I am not going to spoil a good read) and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.

The details of the Challenger disaster is well documented and relates to the “O ring” failing to seal a gap at very low temperature, thus allowing hot gases to escape. This was the technical reason, but there was a people reason as well, which is explained eloquently in this book detailing what happened to all the parties involved. Everyone involved had a story, and everyone’s story was the truth. The root cause of the problem is traced back to the engineer’s advice not supporting the instructions imposed on the directors from above. If the engineer’s advice was taken then the management would fail to meet their targets and heads would roll big time. (If they had taken the engineer’s advice, maybe the disaster would have been avoided!)

I have seen similar situations arise many times in many organisations where in response to a problem the solution appears too difficult to implement, only because the solution does not alleviate other pressures influencing the project. The real problem is that everyone is trying to resolve the problem from a different perspective; everyone has a different priority ranking on the key project success indicators influenced by their own fear of the potential consequences. The fear of the potential consequences is very real, and amongst other things it can be the cause of stress in the workplace, exacerbated by the breakdown in communication and understanding of the perspective of all parties involved.

So a message to all you would-be bosses out there, don’t be dictated by a system, look at your own behaviours and the consequence it is having on the work environment of your staff.

You can start by seeking feedback from those you do not report to directly or indirectly. Secondly, encourage your staff to evaluate your performance. Thirdly, look in the mirror and ask yourself what you would really like to change in the way you respond to pressures in the work place.

All feedback should be received as a gift. Welcome it, reflect upon it, and positively act upon it.

 

 

If you would like to share your answer with me, or know more about me and the work I now do, please send us an email at info@kaurvalues.com