MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP

3 day course (or can be delivered in modular format to suit you preferred time frame.)

LEADERSHIP & DEVELOPING HIGH PERFORMANCE PROGRAMME

A programme that provides the new competencies for success.

Comprehensive text book and five psychometric measuring instruments included. This programme can be delivered in flexible half-day modules.

	Beyond mere management
	Underlying attitudes & beliefs for success
	What high performance leader/developers actually do
	Explicitness – the under emphasised skill
	Diagnosing performance issues
	Rewards & penalties
	Maximising people potential through feedback
	Motivation, ‘different strokes for different folks’
	Adapting your leadership style appropriately
	Leading change & transition
	Click here to download more details as a PDF

Leading & Developing High Performance
by Dr. Derek Biddle

Background to the Leading & Developing High Performance Approach
The genesis for this material came about through researching what effective managers, across a variety of industries, actually did when creating High Performance. ‘Creating’ is not too strong a term here because, in the same set of circumstances, some managers were highly effective, while many of their counterparts were much less so. It was as though some people had, in various ways, found an approach which really worked for them – and that approach was remarkably consistent across all the effective managers and range of industries – while the less successful managers operated to a much less cohesive or consistent approach.

What was sharply visible, too, was that the more the effective managers were much more competent and comfortable in responding to the demands of today’s organisational context, while the less effective ones, although perhaps having been successful in the past, were struggling to come to grips with new ways of working.

We were encouraged, in the words of one of the people we worked with, to ‘bottle’ the best practice we found and thus make it available to others. Our experience since with thousands of managers is that they strongly identify with the approach, and find the techniques and practices meaningful, practical and readily applicable.

Whether you need to tune your skills or cope well with new set of circumstances, or whether you are becoming responsible for the performance of others for the first time, we hope and sincerely believe that sharing our approach with you will help.

Beyond Mere Management – The Results of High Performance Leadership 

The word ‘management’ is a very overused one. It is the term most often used to describe those people responsible for the work and performance of others. Management literature is full of definitions of the term, typical among which is ‘The process of planning, organising, directing and controlling the work of organisation members and of using all available resources to reach stated organisational goals’.

Such descriptions do not come anywhere near to describing what those people responsible for the work and performance of others actually do when they are highly effective. Moreover, much of the conventional theory and practices describe organisational life as it was, not as it is and will increasingly become, the times are not only ‘a changing’, to quote the song, they have changed and will continue to do so. In other words, the context of so called management is radically different to what it was.

There is likely to be little argument that one of the imperatives in the millennium age is for High Performance; organisations, and the individuals within them, are unlikely to survive the fierce competitive climate otherwise. High Performance can be described in many ways, and certainly it is not just the effectiveness of doing the right things. This latter requires people at all levels to engage their judgement and use initiative responsibly.

One way of describing High Performance in a Team Setting is the following, which characterised all the High Performing Teams we studied. The first point to make was that…
…such results rarely happened by themselves, they were created; caused by a Leader who was not a mere manager.

There was nothing magical about what such Leaders did, and often what they did was largely intuitive or carried out at an ‘unconscious competence’level. Their approach and the skills required are readily shared and trainable, which is what this course is about.

Results of High Performance Leadership

• Team all going in same direction

Have a clear sense of purpose, can describe same vision but in their words

• High Morale and Involvement

Feel positive about themselves, have Positive Regard for each other and Team Leader, strong sense of involvement and commitment to their work

• High Achievement

Purposeful, achieve highly above average standards of performance in quality and quantity

• Meet Special Demands

Deal with crises with vigour and resolution - see challenge, manage stress with fun and celebration

• High Reputation

Well known for service they provide and quality of their people, members tend to be promoted more and replacements keen to join

• Manage Change

Embrace change; take change in their stride and cope effectively with new situations

Clearly this is not a sweat-shop situation, driven and compliant, but one with a momentum and impetus of its own. There is certainly high achievement, with very good output, attained through the purposeful use of energy, where there is meaning to what is to be achieved through an owned sense of purpose. There is some fun, ‘snap, crackle and pop’ about it, so that special demands are met, not with weariness and moaning, but with zest, vigour and challenge. Members feel confident about themselves and their contribution (even in lower paid jobs), with high self-esteem, and also feel positive about other team members, including the Team Leader, where there is mutual respect and understanding. 

Sally Foan and Peter Johnson at People Tree Training are licensed practitioners for L&DHP.
The programme is complemented by five psychometric tests and a comprehensive text book.