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Advancer is now Belbin Team Roles accredited
Advancer has recently become Belbin Team Roles accredited.
Belbin is one of the world’s leading team building methodologies and Advancer can partner with you to build high performance teams.
Belbin have identified nine different behaviours that individuals display in the workplace. They call them the nine Belbin Team Roles.
The great thing about Belbin is that the framework discovers the strengths and allowable weaknesses for each of the nine Team Roles, leading to successful teams and positive cultural and climate outcomes.
Contact Advancer today to discuss how Belbin can build your high performance teams.
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Continue ReadingBusiness, Growth, Human Resoures, Innovation, Leadership, People, Staff, Strategy, Teaming, Training
Four key lessons on managing business growth
Here’s four key lessons on managing business growth from our Non Executive Director and digital innovation strategist, Llew Jury.
Hire people that are better & smarter than you to drive your growth.
They’ll drive the company forward better than you as many (good) hands make light work.
It means you can keep having all the good ideas and let the experts run the operations.
Once you’ve hired them make sure you keep developing them and offer leadership development and career pathways that are achievable so they stick around.
Cash is everything.
As you grow you’ll need to master how to manage cash in your business.
Cash is the literal life blood of any business and don’t bother lifting a finger on any marketing or hiring activities until you’ve got your cash sorted.
And even if you have cash in the bank, remember it might be due for payments on tax, wages or pre spent advertising.
So do up cash forecast budgets so you know what’s coming up for payment and you know at any time what your real cash position is.
Have succession at every growth stage.
Start offloading as much as possible as early as possible.
Internally outsourcing tasks from day one will make a huge difference in your long term.
It also grows leadership positions and retention of your key management people that have ambitions from the early days.
Don’t think sensational growth will last forever.
Growth in a business comes and goes and in different seasons.
Learn to save when the season is great and plan for lower growth stages in your business before they happen.
When the going gets tough it’s great to have a fall back option such as a small overdraft, although I’m not one to borrow large sums of money to finance growth.
Good luck!
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Continue ReadingAustralia, Business, Growth, Human Resoures, Innovation, Leadership, People, Staff, Strategy, Teaming, Technology
Build an innovation culture for change success
Corporate culture is arguably the reason innovation will succeed or fail.
An organisation where innovation is valued and fully integrated into the business will invariably yield more success stories than ones with an innovation program run by a separate department with bright walls and a ping pong table.
There are two sides to the corporate culture story.
One is that innovation must be part of the ethos to foster change in the first instance, and the second is that implementing change without the hearts and minds of your staff will reduce the impact that change has on the business.
The word innovation can spark fear into the hearts of your staff – the result of innovation is change and change might disrupt the apple cart of their harmonious work environment.
So how do you build an innovation culture for change success? This article addresses the fact that innovation must be part of the ethos to foster change in the first place. I have a few thoughts about how to do this and they are outlined below;
Inspire enthusiasm
For innovation to occur people need to be motivated. This starts with communication. If people understand how they could potentially add value to the business and are given the opportunity to engage with others in their organisation in order to achieve this, ideas will start to flow. Creating events and opportunities where individuals from every corner of the business can meet and consider how they can leverage off each others skills to achieve greatness will kick start the innovation journey. Fundamental to this, is a sense that no idea is off the table and every idea has possibility. Remember the HR person could have the most innovative and disruptive idea that just requires a like minded IT professional.
Share the stories
Once you have some innovative ideas flowing – communicate the success stories so that others can see how the business values innovation. By communicating the stories, you will create business – wide credibility. It is important to identify those ideas that will generate success stories early, ideally these stories will be talked about in the tea room and inspire others to participate as the innovation program embeds into the business. Don’t forget to communicate those ideas that did not achieve their desired outcome but generated lessons that others can use. This process will demonstrate that the business does not punish failure but instead uses it as a building block to pave the way for future successes. (On a side note, I would suggest that this ethos becoming integrated into the business will result in other positive outcomes in addition to creating an innovation culture.)
Provide the space
Inevitably innovation cannot come at the expense of the continued functioning of the business, there will still be targets to hit and budgets to balance. But to enable an innovation culture to stick, managers must enable their staff to take some time to think and experiment without fear of repercussions. If this key piece is not met, the hard work done to engage and communicate with people will be undone by the organisation not living up to the promises it has made to its staff regarding the value it places on innovation. Obviously every circumstance is different, but if you are not willing to give innovation space, then consider if you want to be an innovative company in the first place.
Do you want to grow an innovation culture and a great place for change? Check out our people strategy page for more!
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Why you should ditch the annual performance review
Traditional annual performance reviews are increasingly being replaced by more frequent performance conversations or ‘check ins’. This is hardly remarkable considering that to achieve success people need to know how they are going at all times not just at the end of the year or on completion of a project.
Research tells us that in order to create a learning culture, we need to effectively use all the data we have around us and continuously learn from it.
Research also tells us that annual performance appraisals, cause stress in individuals, can be subject to subjective bias and do not necessarily ‘measure’ the most appropriate attributes or competencies.
There is an increasingly large body of research that articulate why we should ditch annual performance reviews in favour of regular feedback and discussion; here are my top 3;
They focus on the past
Behaviours, failures or successes that have occurred in the past should have been dealt with at the time. If a child demonstrates a behaviour that is unsatisfactory, or a team loses a match, we do not wait until the experience has been stored in the recesses of the brain to provide feedback. It is instant, or at the very least at the earliest possible convenience. This way, expectations of both parties are managed. Workplaces should be no different. It is the definition of insanity to allow the same thing to happen over again and expect a different result. Providing feedback as we go and focusing on immediate improvement will bring about the best results.
Frequent feedback sparks creativity
It is the millennial way of life, we are fast paced and increasingly able to adapt to changes around us. Regular check-ins enable us to make changes iteratively. Feedback that is given constructively and focusses on development can inspire individuals to perform and try things they would not normally try. Typically, individuals will take the safe option when they think they are being evaluated, it may be that we have rewarded this type of behaviour in the past, however, I would argue that maintaining this mindset may not be the ideal status quo for any business.
Frequent feedback increase in staff morale
There is an increasing amount of research that suggests that departing from annual performance reviews in favour of on the job feedback increases staff morale and reduces turnover. This is hardly surprising, the brain is constantly seeking feedback, ‘Am I doing what is expected of me? Am I doing it right? Am I adding enough value to maintain my position within the team? Answering these questions or questions such as these, satisfies one of the core requirements of the brain. Answers to these questions enables the brain to learn, and develop, providing constant and never ending improvement which in turn keeps staff engaged, increases morale and ultimately reduces turnover.
There are of course some fundamentals that must be followed if you will be relying on more frequent feedback loops when it comes to performance management. You can read about those in my next blog.
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HR basics for small business – five key safeguards
When you are a small or medium business, it is easy to focus on the outcomes of the business and forget about the HR platforms that should be put in place to safe guard and build it.
Investing in human resource (HR) expertise can be a vital step to your success. These days, HR is more than simply recruitment and employee benefits, both of which are the primary associations of HR in Australia.
However, if you do nothing more with your HR than to safeguard your business from the pitfalls that are associated with not having the HR fundamentals in place; I recommend doing these five key things;
1. Be legislatively compliant; ensure that your employment contracts provide the legal minimum requirements as set out in the national employment standards, any awards or enterprise/registered agreements that may apply to your business. And of course ensure you and your employee have a signed copy and that yours is stored in a secure location on your premises.
2. Have a core set of HR policies and a code of conduct to mitigate against workplace risks such as bullying, harassment, discrimination and setting clear expectations regarding behaviour including social media use. Remember that it is not enough to simply have the policies, you need to ensure that your staff are aware of and understand them, and know where they can be located if they need to access them.
3. Develop robust role descriptions. Role descriptions provide clarity for individuals and should outline the duties expected of staff and contain reporting relationships, work locations and any other expectations regarding the position. Role clarity is arguably the foundation of team effectiveness.
4. Ensure that processes for performance management are transparent and actively used. Under performance in a small business can drag the business down and managing an under performer out of a business without a clear process can be costly and time consuming in the Fair Work Commission.
5. Maintain effective records, such as information about the business including the company name and ABN, staff records such as rates of pay, hours of work records including penalty rates and time and attendance or rosters, leave records including how much leave an employee has taken and how much should be paid out at the end of their contract. Special consideration should also be given to any individual agreement you may have with a particular staff member.
If you have any HR requirements in your business please get in touch today.
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The steps to building a high performance team
Teams are so much more than a group of individuals who work or play together. High performing teams seem to have an aura of excellence about them and a sense that nothing is unachievable.
However, when teams are not functioning well, the consequences can be dire.
Teams normally comprise members with complimentary skill sets, who have come together to achieve a common goal. Whilst there are many elements that contribute to making a team truly excellent, there is a fundamental component without which a team will arguably never reach its full potential.
A team performs at its best when individuals understand the role they play and how they contribute to the team’s shared goal. This principle applies to teams at work and at play.
Consider a world class football team.
Individuals are chosen for the team based on their skill in a particular position. Each individual understands the role their position contributes to the overall goal of the team; to win. As a team develops, they develop trust in each other’s skills and abilities and work together leveraging each other’s strengths to win matches.
The team goal is of a higher order than any outcome for an individual. And really great teams have an aura of being unbeatable.
Conversely, if individuals who do not know each other, take the field in a position for which their skills are not suited, and/or they do not understand the role they play within the team, the team has a large chance of losing.
Players assume personal responsibility for winning because they have confidence in their own abilities above the combined skills of the team. Positions on the filed become confused and overlap, players get in each other way squander opportunities. Players become frustrated with each other and the team as a whole.
To build the foundation of a great team follow these simple steps:
Step 1 – formulate the right team for the right purpose.
Ideally a team compromises specialist individuals who have been carefully selected to achieve a specific objective or goal. Implicit in the development of a team is that the outcome will be achieved more effectively by a group of individuals rather than by an individual acting alone.
Step 2 – get the roles sorted.
An individual understanding how they fit into and contribute to the broader structure is fundamental to a healthy team. Without this any work done to make a team more efficient or better performing will likely have minimal effect if the group cannot agree on what they do and how they do it. Agree on role descriptions that broadly outline what objectives need to be completed by each individual.
Step 3 – Agree on how the team will play together.
Ground rules are important. Without an identified commitment to how the team will work together, moving forward together will be inhibited.
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Has technology replaced the human in human resources?
Firing someone by SMS message is not illegal.
Sending an SMS for work related situations may be the most appropriate method in certain circumstances.
But what do we think of a company who actually severs the relationship with their employees in this way?
It’s my view that any relationship break up dealt with sensitively, can minimise the subsequent aftermath. The last thing any employer would want is for the manner in which the break up has occurred to overshadow the reasons for the break up itself.
Every action sends a message, and being fired by text exposes employers to increased emotional responses from former employees, and shines a bright light on how people can expect to be treated if and when the time comes that their employer deems them surplus to requirements.
There are ways to end an employment relationship that can minimise the effects that it can have on individuals.
Firstly and most importantly, ensure that you comply with the terms of the employment arrangement.
Disputes arise when parties to an arrangement do not do what they agreed. Whilst this seems obvious, sticking to the terms of an agreement that you have entered into including termination and redundancy provisions not only demonstrates integrity, but it will minimise your exposure to potentially expensive unfair dismissal claims.
Secondly, conduct a fair process.
If you do not have written processes for particular circumstances, check out resources such as the Fair Work Ombudsman, which has basic information that can assist. Following a fair process will set transparent parameters and demonstrate consistency.
And thirdly, consider the legacy you want to leave.
While technology certainly has its place in business, and increasingly in the HR space, I would suggest that it shouldn’t replace the human being when it comes to delivering what will invariably be bad news.
Whilst it may be easier on the employer to utilise technology to deliver the ‘it’s over’ message, consider how you would want to be treated in similar circumstances.
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Icebreaker game for speaking events
I recently facilitated at a conference for a group of managers and spent some considerable time pondering the icebreaker game that I would use to get the session started.
As the first facilitator of the day I was aware that I would set the one for not just my session, but the entire day.
I didn’t know anyone in the group and was not sure how serious or otherwise they may be, although I knew that the group was only loosely connected. I had limited time so I wanted something simple and quick.
Searching for right icebreaker game
I searched for various search terms in the hope that I might find something innovative that would fulfill my requirements and I found some very interesting and innovative game ideas.
Some did the old trick of falling backwards and catching your workmates (the trust game), with others requiring in-depth rule explanation and activities that would eat into my precious facilitation time.
I specifically wanted people to get their name on the table, but leave professions and more to the point positions at the door.
Whilst I was confident that the few higher level leaders in the group were self aware enough not to unduly influence others, I still tend to follow the mantra of ‘individual over position’ wherever possible.
I found nothing on the internet that suited my specific needs, so my solution was simple and had the potential to become whatever the group wanted it to be.
The simple icebreaker game
I ended up asking them to introduce themselves by their first name in alphabetical order.
It seems simple but it encouraged discussion between the broader group, highlighted differences between individuals that gave me some valuable insight into the dynamics. For example I could see the ‘organiser’, the ‘one that followed the rules to a T’, the ‘one that would bend the rules’ and the ‘one that required a small prod when it was their turn’.
There were a few laughs as people encountered the ‘funnel letters’ (J and L for this particular group) but after a bit of debate we got through the whole group.
In summary
Icebreaker games are funny things, they are valuable, they kick start and set the tone for the day.
I find that removing the label that comes with a position in an organisation, creates an environment of equality and openness that enables free flowing interaction and heightened sharing, a state that can be limited once positions that individuals hold are known to the broader group.
In my experience, listening to what a person has to say rather than what the position has to say, can pave the way for an opportunity that might otherwise have been either dismissed or blindly followed.
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5 tips for empowering people
An empowered workforce delivers excellent results.
Six words that roll easily off the tongue, we know that they mean, but what do empowered teams look like, and how do we get one?
As a leader it is easy to succumb to the pressures of your role. It is particularly easy to jump in and micromanage the problems that you see affecting your deliverables.
Have you ever considered however, that by doing this, you may inadvertently be discouraging your team from achieving their potential and in doing so limiting your chances of fostering the empowered workforce that delivers excellent results?
Here are 5 tips that will help make your teams feel empowered to step up and unleash their potential.
Tip #1 – Make sure they have all the information they need
You have more information than those in your teams, you understand the strategic direction and core values of the organisation, and how individuals are expected to operate and behave in accordance with those values.
You also understand how all your teams ‘fit’ together at the highest level.
Individuals and teams who understand where the organisation is heading, how it plans to get there and how they contribute to that journey, have a far greater chance of maximising their individual and team potential.
Tip #2 – Encourage open communication
Many organisations believe that sending emails or newsletters to keep staff ‘in the loop’ ticks the communication box. Not so if you want to develop empowered individuals and teams.
Most people want to be around inspirational leaders, and learn from them, so be visible and talk to your staff, not just the ones that report to you, but those that report to them and the level below that.
Invite your staff to give you constructive feedback and then act on it if you can. This will filter down and result in an environment where people feel safe to discuss things and build relationships. Promote communication outside of the constraints dictated by an organisational structure so people develop the networks that achieve outcomes.
Tip #3 – Create an environment where staff can innovate
Not only do you need to have an environment where people feel safe to communicate ideas openly, you need an environment conducive to people feeling safe to try new things: ideas, approaches, processes without anyone correcting them prior to execution.
Bosses who constantly step in and correct staff or worse, changing something to be the way they would do it themselves will invariably foster individuals who will become unable to function without prior approval or may hold off trying new things altogether.
Providing opportunities for employees to stretch themselves in an environment that will not expose the organisation to great risk will encourage agility and innovation that will undoubtedly result in greater outcomes for them and you.
Create ‘safe failure’, by ensuring that innovative projects have appropriate check points or milestones and make sure that feedback, if required, is given in a ‘coaching’ style, that enables the individual to work through the issue themselves rather than the answer being provided by you.
Tip #4 – Hold people to account
There are many examples of holding people to account; for outcomes of their project, for decisions they make running the ‘business as usual’, but it is my experience that the biggest contributor to the debilitation of teams occurs when someone is not being held accountable for their behaviour or actions.
One of the most powerful things you can do as a leader is hold someone to account, particularly if the issue is regarding behaviour.
If a staff member is not behaving consistently with the values of your organization, that individual must be told. No if’s, no buts, they must be told.
If they cannot work within agreed values it may be that they need to be moved on. Sometimes a team is better off without an individual even if they are the one with all the technical knowledge. Such knowledge can be gained in other areas, using other people.
A team will not respect a leader who does not walk the talk, nor will they respect a leader who does not require their team to walk the talk.
Tip #5 – Value them
This one is obvious right?
As children we are told to say thank you to people if they do something for us, the boys in my son’s rugby team, and the kids in my daughters soccer team jump all over each other when someone scores a goal. Adult soccer and rugby teams do the same come to think of it.
I realise that not all of us are in a position to jump around the office, with our shirts over our heads and our arms in the air, but surely we can muster a ‘thank you’ or a ‘well done’.
Showing people how much you value them has been proven to be more effective than financial reward when it comes to staff retention.
So fostering an empowered team is easy really, tell people how they contribute to the greater goal, talk to them, encourage them to try new things and thank them for their contribution. If they cannot work to these principles, then consider your options.
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How to get the most from your people
As business’s continue strive for productivity dividends; having reaped all they can from ‘the low hanging fruit’, leaders are increasingly asking themselves, ‘how do we get better outcomes from the same resources?’
There will always be new technology that promises to increase productivity, reduce timeframes and potentially remove the necessity to interact with a human to get whatever job it is that you want done, done.
There will undoubtedly be a significant up front financial investment and the roll out may take months, particularly if you require that critical ‘something’ that requires a bespoke solution.
There could still be a dysfunctional process embedded in the darkest corners of your organization: the one that requires five individuals, a business case and six signatures, the one that could be completely replaced by a Google search and an online form, (I would hope however, that this would have been addressed in the aforementioned ‘low hanging fruit’ section).
I would hazard a guess that very few leaders have fully explored the potential that may be sitting right under their noses, their people.
Many studies can demonstrate how effective leadership can increase productivity in people. So here is my number one tip to get the most from your staff, it worked for me:
Empower them.
One of the first lessons I learned on my leadership journey was to set the vision, then delegate everything except the power to delegate. Decisions and innovations are invariably of higher quality when they are made close to where the action is.
It is obvious really: let’s take something simple, like a process.
High performing individuals who run a recruitment process, understand the potential efficiencies and innovations that could be gained by improving it, these individuals, are surely best placed make such improvements happen.
Provided a change in process does not result in unintended consequences elsewhere in the business, the delegation to approve the new process should be made by the manager of that recruitment team.
If there is a wider impact on the business, then obviously the decision moves up the chain, but the recruitment manager must remain part of the decision making process.
This requires high degrees of trust that individuals and teams will deliver outcomes in line with the organization’s well-articulated vision, not to mention a maturity of team dynamics.
Empowering high performing individuals to make decisions take risks and do something different, then ‘backing them in’, will result in a workforce that is empowered, resilient and ultimately performs above and beyond the expectations you have of them and they have of themselves.
Maintaining a level of visibility until such time as you and your team have reached a level of trust may be a wise step, particularly if empowering individuals and teams to this extent is new for you.
Take heed however, with great power comes great responsibility; the empowered individual also must be the accountable individual.
I am not suggesting that if an innovation or a change fails, people are hauled in front of the board of directors, (in fact I would advocate that if this is your first foray into empowering and holding to account that you start small!) however, they must be prepared to explain why they made the decisions they have.
If nothing else this will ensure that empowered decision makers cover all possible angles prior to making a decision!
I believe that if you empower your people, you will not only find that you get more from them, but that your business will become more agile and ultimately a place known for innovation and growth.
About Advancer
We’re a Brisbane business, people & digital growth firm that’s disrupting “the boring” in business consulting. We uniquely combine people collaboration with the latest innovation & business growth strategies to change the way a business performs. We’re the change makers that will become your trusted advisor. Welcome to Advancer.
Contact Advancer
Advancer Group Pty Ltd
Level 1, Unit 1/11 Parkview St
Milton QLD 4064
Tel: 1300 898 296
ABN: 16 602 771 004
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