LDP 2/2009
Managing for high performance Great conversations for great results
Our purpose is to be the company that professionals trust to connect them more deeply with their business's goals, the people around them, and their own aspirations. Stratagem Learning and Development Ltd. Tel: +44 (0)1962 848630 Fax: +44 (01962 870080 E-mail: info@stratagem-uk.com www.stratagem-uk.com
Do your people know that their day-today job has a direct impact on your company’s big picture? How connected do your people feel to your company’s vision and goals? In communicating the reality and validity of this connection, your managers rely on the strength of their relationships with their team members. So….
Great conversations... ‘Great’ conversations are also aligned with the culture of the organisation, so that the conversation prompts, promotes and precipitates future success in a real rather than a theoretical way.
or Poor Conversations... When conversations are not of sufficient quality, issues are ducked, ignored or confused, understanding is blurred or mistaken, and commitment to goals is warped, lacking or grudging.
How healthy are the relationships in your business? How clearly do your managers understand the importance of those relationships in determining commitment? How effectively do they try and use relationships to maximise their team’s performance?
Where we come in
Our belief We believe that relationships have a huge bearing on performance. We believe that relationships should be built on co-operation and commitment, rather than compliance and conflict. We believe that a relationship – and thus performance – is built on productive, sometimes called ‘great’, conversations. Conversations between managers and their team members come in many guises and contexts, but ‘great’ conversations should enable true communication in both directions, leading to real understanding and agreement.
Stratagem Learning and Development delivers workshops that build on the self-knowledge that your managers will have gained in undergoing the Insights Discovery Personal Effectiveness Programme. These workshops explore great conversations, to enable managers to enter into more beneficial dialogue with their team members, and thus to engender great results through enhanced performance.
“They add value by getting under the skin of our business so much that they feel part of the team, whilst maintaining the objectivity to challenge our thinking and help us to find practical, innovative ways to develop our people” Severn Trent Water, October 2008
Stratagem Learning and Development Ltd. Tel: +44 (0)1962 848630 Fax: +44 (01962 870080 E-mail: info@stratagem-uk.com www.stratagem-uk.com
Why? Through these workshops, we can help you align your people with your aspirations to achieve the following core benefits: • Shared goals: understanding the business you are in • Shared culture: living the vision and values that bind you together • Shared learning: fostering the need for innovation and improvement • Shared information: enhancing internal communication • Shared effort: working interdependently to deliver results
What? In these workshops, the participants: • See what great conversations about performance sound and feel like • Learn what helps and hinders them in practice • Practise skills in a supportive environment • Commit to making personal changes to encourage great conversations and thus improve the management of performance
How? A Stratagem intervention: • Delivers – and has the delegates delivering – great conversations • Is, above all else, experiential • Is nevertheless grounded in the latest and most advanced behavioural thinking • Is tailored to our understanding of your specific business goals and current challenges • Presents real feedback from real people within the organisation as a starting point • Employs professional role players to make the conversations ‘real’ • Leaves the organisation and the delegates with a toolkit of skills to make the learning ‘stick’
Who? Stratagem is built around a core team of professionals: • Whose job satisfaction is entirely derived from helping individuals, teams and organisations to perform better • Who respect the theoretical in designing their interventions, but the practical in delivering them • Who believe strongly in the power of high-impact, high-involvement modules • Who have been sharing their knowledge and aggregating their experience for the benefit of client organisations for the last 15 years
Stratagem Learning and Development Ltd. Tel: +44 (0)1962 848630 Fax: +44 (01962 870080 E-mail: info@stratagem-uk.com www.stratagem-uk.com
Severn Trent Water
Case Study
Managing for high performance at Severn Trent Water What they needed STW wanted to shine the spotlight on managing performance to give their developing customer focused culture an edge and drive.
What we did We worked with STW to design an intervention which focused on managing performance by developing the ability from Front Line Managers to Senior Managers to grasp the need to develop real relationships with their staff and undertake adult conversations aimed at achieving both development and performance improvement
The approach was highly experiential using case studies, scenarios and professional role players. We used the role players to:
The key elements of the programme were:
• directly involve participants in the
• what does managing for high performance mean?
• why does it matter? • the pivotal role of managers • the mindsets which help or hinder • identifying own development needs and making a development plan
• great conversations in practice
• play back what is happening in the business
• show how behaviours can be changed process
To make this authentic we undertook interviews with a wide range of people in STW recording views and comments which we could play back and build into case studies to enable delegates to practice with issues they knew arose within the organisation. We rolled out the programme to a population of 900 managers at all levels throughout the organisation.
What they said “Working with Nevin and the team is stimulating and enjoyable. They add value by getting under the skin of our business so much that they feel part of the team, whilst maintaining objectivity to challenge our thinking and help us find practical, innovative ways to develop our people.” Penny Brown
• commit to make personal changes in behaviour
Leadership Development Manager STW
Stratagem Learning and Development Ltd. Tel: +44 (0)1962 848630 Fax: +44 (01962 870080 E-mail: info@stratagem-uk.com www.stratagem-uk.com