HPO SECRETS

With Jersey businesses getting back to normal as lockdown lifts what makes some companies excel and others fail

WHAT IS THE SECRET OF THE HIGH PERFORMING ORGANISATION WHERE WE ALREADY KNOW THEY WILL ALWAYS ACHIEVE, EVEN IN SUCH CHALLENGING TIMES….

PART 5 - HPO EXCEPTIONAL LEADERSHIP

Did you know that 87% of skills are lost due to lack of management follow up after coaching? That's why management and follow up are key! Mark Shields Explains...

HPOS' recognise the vital importance of first and second line manager roles and responsibilities. They are key to the future of the performance of the oranisation. The main reason such importance is placed on first line managers / team leaders is they are the first line of management to ground level staff.

This means they are responsible for the personal development, personal growth, personal motivation and wellbeing of all members of their team. Them teams and ground level staff are key as they deliver the sales and service performance the organisation needs to succeed.

There is often between 5 and 10 tiers of management in many organisations however in HPO's it is common to find only 3 or 4. This is so all tiers of management can communicate clearly, delegate effectively, change rapidly, perform consistently and all buy in to the key organisational values, mission, vision and innovation to ensure the company's success both now and moving forward.

INDIVIDUALS

HPOs foster an organisation of learning where they invest heavily in their workforce. They do this typically through team leader development and personal development of their teams.

HPOs will develop a clear set of core competencies / KPI'S that they want the organisation's employees to master. They will invest in keeping these competencies prominent through training and development. These organizations also reinvent the way they refer to their employees in order to place value on the team concept. Employee titles will reflect this. They will often be referred to as team leaders or team members or associates as opposed to employees or staff. This promotes the team concept and ownership of team targets and objectives.

This again increases employee involvement and makes employees more committed to the larger goals and competencies that the organisation places value in. It also re enforces individual team member importance and their individual contribution to the bigger

team and business plan. They take full responsibility for their own individual targets and results and stand accountable in achieving their contribution to the teams results. They adopt the philosophy. " If we all individually achieve the team achieves" Comparable to the well known team saying TEAM TOGETHER WE ALL ACHIEVE MORE "

LEADERS

The roles of managers in an HPO are also reinvented. Traditional models for organizations would have leaders closely monitor or supervise their teams. Team leaders in HPOs are more concerned with long term positive psychology, the cultural of an organisation,

individual motivation and staff personal development and growth.

They take a more hands off approach and their titles reflect this change in responsibility. Leaders in HPOs trust in their employees to make the right decisions. They act as a coach to their team members by giving them support and keeping them focused on the project at hand.

These leaders are able to lead depending on the situation and have the capability to adjust their leadership style based upon the needs of their team members. They know when to inspire people with direct communication and also have the ability to read when a more hands off approach is necessary. Although these leaders act with a handsoff approach, they hold non-performers accountable for not reaching their goals.

Leadership practices are also in line with the company's vision, values, and goals.

Leaders of these organisations make all of their decisions with the organisation's values in mind. Leadership behavior that is consistent with the organisation's vision involves setting clear expectations, promoting a sense of belonging, fostering employee involvement in decision making, and encouraging learning and development.

Leaders in an HPO also have the responsibility of understanding and being able to quickly make important decisions about the always

changing marketplace in which their organisation operates.

Leaders should have the ability to anticipate changes in competition, technology, and economics within their market.

In a high-performance organisation, leaders all have the same focus and outcome focused goals and objectives.

These leaders help the organisation achieve excellence by bringing out the best in people, helping them adapt to changing circumstances and promoting good and harmonious teamwork. Making the best use of the company's most valuable resource – its people – is key to delivering sustainable success.

Managers act with integrity and serve as role models for their reports. They are credible and consistent and exhibit a strong set of ethical standards that gain the trust and respect of their teams. They are people-focused, and they are results-focused.

High-performance managers make swift and effective decisions instead of over analysing, and they encourage others to do the same.

They give people continuous support, coaching and freedom to act in ways that are consistent with the organisation's standards. Ultimately, they expect people to take risks, make the tough calls and hold themselves accountable for their own decisions.

HPO First Line Managers live and operate by using a Set of empowering Beliefs.

These are known as the presuppositions of NLP. You will come across these several times in this course.

Mark Shields CEO Life Practice Group Coach, Educator, Author, https://courses.thecamcoach.com/ 01462 431112

White Star, Blue Iceberg By Paul Darroch

Alfred Olliver Quartermaster, RMS Titanic April 14, 1912

They say Jerseymen are born to set to sea, and I ran into its embrace when I was only sixteen. I’m a gris ventre, a St Ouënnais by birth, the third child of eleven. Only eight of us lived. My father was a Breton farmer; my mother a proud Le Cornu. Her forefathers have dwelled up at Les Landes forever, in the shadow of the ruined castle. They lived where Jersey’s grey snout punches into the ocean. That’s my home.

They had too many mouths to feed, and there were no prospects at home. So, I took the Queen’s shilling and enlisted in the Navy, in the last year of Victoria’s reign. They ground me through the hard mill of the Royal Marines training barracks in Gosport. Those were gruelling years, but I learned well enough to navigate, to steer and sail. Seawater entered my blood. I served the King for seven years, but with no wars left to fight in this peaceable age, and a wife to win, I eventually decided to slip into a more comfortable berth.

So, I joined White Star Lines, the king of the ocean passenger firms, ferrying millionaires and commoners alike from the Old World to the New. I was posted to their flagship, RMS Olympic, as soon as it came down from the yards at Belfast. That ship, as the press remember too well, courted disaster, scraping poor HMS Hawke in the Solent, but despite the Board of Inquiry, I don’t blame Captain Smith for that collision. The old man will retire after this voyage with all the credit he deserves.

My new wife and I nestled in the suburbs of Southampton, not far from the dockyards. We named our little home “Olympic” in honour of the ship, and last year my son was born. Rents being as expensive as they are, we share the house with my brother-inlaw Walter, who also works on the ships. That’s how we both came to be transferred to RMS Titanic, newest of the lot. The maiden voyage of a new White Star liner is always something special, and I am looking forward to docking on Manhattan Island come the seventeenth. New York is quite a city.

This evening I’m at the helm, my hands grasping the wheel as it plunges through the North Atlantic. Titanic surely lives up to its name. It is the largest man-made object in the world. As I steer, I think of the 882 feet of steel, the three million rivets, the twentynine boilers driving the great vessel forwards. We travel at a brisk 22 knots, ploughing through the Atlantic miles like a knife through butter. They say the richest man in Babylon is aboard tonight, John Jacob Astor himself, and perhaps one of the noblest too, the earnest reformer William Stead, on his way to a peace conference. The boss himself, Bruce Ismay, chairman of the line, is prowling around, so we are all on our sharpest behaviour. Capt. Smith is doubtless wining and dining the First-class passengers right now; rank has its privileges. Let them all enjoy the swimming pool, the Turkish baths and squash courts. I am here to work.

At ten o’clock, I am finally relieved of the wheel. The dog hours of the later watches are proving to be the usual flurry of errands and tasks, for a Quartermaster’s work is never done. I have just been trimming the lights in the standing compass, so they would burn properly. Then three sharp bells ring out from the Crow’s Nest. Fred Fleet must have seen something. I can only see the blackness of the night.

I step onto the bridge. The ship is veering drunkenly to port. Then there is a prolonged shudder, like a rolling earthquake, and a long, grinding sound, as if a giant is cutting the top off a tin can.

The bridge is in darkness, which is standard procedure on the night watch. My eyes take a moment to adjust. William Murdoch, officer of the watch, is at the engine order telegraph. Over in the wheelhouse, I can make out Mr Moody’s silhouette, and Robert Hichens grasping the wheel, frozen like a waxwork. Thank God, this fiasco didn’t happen on my watch. There will be hell to pay if the ship has scraped something. Perhaps our pay will be docked.

Then I see the jagged alp of ice. It is sweeping right past the bridge. It’s a little higher than the deck, with a brutal spiked crown. I have never seen an iceberg so close, and it looks so dark-blue, so heavy, as if it’s filled right up with the ocean. I shudder at the evil sight, but it soon falls away astern, back into the night.

“Hard a-port”, Murdoch cries. The vicious grinding stops. Captain Smith, who has been resting, stumbles onto the bridge: “Mr Murdoch, what was that?”

“An iceberg, sir”.

“Close the watertight doors”, the Captain orders.

“The watertight doors are closed, sir”.

I glance over at the clock at the back of the wheelhouse. It is twenty minutes to midnight. There is an abrupt, almost deafening, silence, for the heartbeat of my working life has fallen suddenly still. The Titanic’s engines have stopped.

Paul Darroch is the author of Jersey: Secrets of the Sea, which tells Jersey’s maritime history in the voices of the seafarers who made it. The book is available throughout Jersey and on Amazon.

Where does Resilience begin?

BY MARK ANTHONY BAKER

If we are to develop resilience effectively, we need to realise that true resilience begins in the mind and that it is something that is developed over time just like any good wine.

So, where should our energy be directed if we are to become resilient?

I believe that a good place to begin is by putting things into perspective by appraising situations as they arise and noticing our thoughts and our reactions to those thoughts. As much of our thinking is habitual (about 90%) it can be easy to slip into a downward spiral without being aware what is happening until it’s gone too far. Things are rarely as bad as they seem and very few things are insurmountable. After all, as we rarely, if ever, encounter life threatening situations, how bad can it really be? Whatever challenges you are facing as an individual or a company, have been successfully overcome before. The question becomes why not you? If it’s endurable, then endure it, whilst firmly focussing on the solution. The key word being - focus! I teach individuals and companies all over the world about something called the reticular activating system or the RAS for short. The RAS is situated at the base of the brain stem and its function is to decide which of the two million pieces of information that we are bombarded with every second, get through to us.

But who decides what gets through? You do - by what you

choose to focus on. How many times have you bought a new car and immediately began to see them everywhere when there didn’t seem to be many if any prior to the purchase? How many ladies who have been pregnant before suddenly noticed that pregnant women suddenly appeared to be everywhere when there didn’t seem to be any prior to your good news. Did you ever wonder why this happened? When you experienced any of the two examples above it was facilitated by the fact that you began to focus on them intently. When you did this, you sent a message to your brain saying that these examples were important to you. Your brain responded by allowing more relevant information to get through to your conscious field of awareness. Utilising the power of focus to activate your reticular activating system will always cause it to respond in the same way. When you understand how to use it consciously you get to effectively direct the course of your life or your business in a way that you were previously unable to consciously.

Have you ever wondered why things seem to get worse when you worried and focussed on negative outcomes?

You caused it by focusing on the situation with intent causing your brain to bring to your attention information that only confirmed that it was going to get worse. However, it’s the same with opportunity and mental wellbeing as whatever we focus on intently will essentially provide information to support our point of focus. Fundamentally it’s a factor that supports the saying “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is a consequence of what they choose to focus on. If you focus on opportunity you will see more opportunities. If you focus on the fact that money and resources are scarce you will just receive evidence to confirm how bad things are.

Whatever you think of and focus on with intent will inevitably create a self-fulfilling prophecy for you.

If we believe and expect a successful outcome, we will put in the effort that reflects the corresponding degree of belief causing the likelihood of success to become highly probable. However, if we have little belief and low expectations of success, we consequently unconsciously make less effort and the chances of success diminish rapidly. The key factor is where we choose to place our focus on with intent. 90% of causation is mental and so it is with resilience. We must begin with the belief and expectation that we are resilient and focus on what that means to us. Then we must act on it and see ourselves as resilient. Ask ourselves how we are going to overcome our challenges as individuals or as a business. What do I need to believe to make this happen and what must I do? Then act! If you don’t feel you have these attributes, then “act as if” until you do.

BMW 2 Series Gran Coupe By Jack Evans

The 2 Series Gran Coupe is one of the latest additions to BMW’s range of saloons, but what’s it like to drive? Jack Evans finds out...

WHAT IS IT?

In a motoring world seemingly obsessed with niche-busting models, here’s another one. The BMW 2 Series Gran Coupe is essentially a four-door version of the two-door 2 Series (which in itself is a coupe version of the five-door 1 Series) and the smallest Gran Coupe model in BMW’s line-up. Somewhat sleeker and more dynamic-looking than the 1 Series upon it’s based on, the 2 Series GC is yet another proposition in the smaller end of the new car spectrum. But what’s it like to drive and are those sweeping looks worth it?

Facts at a glance

Model: BMW 220d Gran Coupe Model as tested: 220d Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged diesel Power: 188bhp Torque: 400Nm Max speed: 146mph 0-60mph: 7.3seconds MPG: 53.4 Emissions: 134g/km CO2

WHAT'S NEW?

As mentioned, the 2 Series GC shares its underpinnings with the standard 1 Series and as a result retains that car’s list of engines, as well as its front-wheel-drive layout. However, it’s ever so slightly longer than the 1 Series, which helps add to its sleek, stretched-out design. All of this does come at the expense of interior headroom, mind you, but that’s a common trade-off with coupe-style models. Inside, it benefits from BMW’s latest infotainment system as well as a host of connectivity and assistance features.

WHAT'S UNDER THE BONNET?

Though there’s quite the range of engines to choose from with the 2 Series GC, we’ve got the 220d model, which sees a 2.0-litre turbocharged diesel engine sending 188bhp and 400Nm of torque to the front wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox.

It’s a reasonably conventional setup, but one that’ll likely find favour with many – not least because of its efficiency. BMW claims up to 53.4mpg combined and, during our time with the car, we were going above and beyond this on longer journeys. Emissions figures are also reasonable for a car of this size and type at 134g/km CO2.

There’s no option to have BMW’s all-wheel-drive xDrive system fitted on this engine type, either. For that, you’ll need to bump up to the higher-powered M235i model.

WHAT'S IT LIKE TO DRIVE?

You expect a car like the 2 Series Gran Coupe to be comfortable, refined and easy to live with over long journeys and, for the most part, it achieves each of these well. The ride is a touch too firm for this tester, but it does result in excellent body control when cornering and isn’t too much of a concern when at a cruise on the motorway. Road and wind noise are contained well too, and though there’s some noise intrusion into the cabin made by the engine when accelerating hard, during regular drives it remains hushed.

The steering is excellent too, and the engine itself is punchy and muscular in the way it puts the power down. It feels brisker than the initial figures suggest, too. The eight-speed gearbox tying it all together is one of the best in the business, responding well to acceleration inputs and leaving little delay when pulling away from a dead stop.

HOW DOES IT LOOK?

Well it’s different, isn’t it? Certainly against the 1 Series or standard 2 Series, this Gran Coupe looks like a distinctly new proposition. Of course, looks are down to the individual, but the GC’s quirky design took some getting used to. The back of the car is a particular talking point, and whether or not it’s a successfully designed area is down to you.

But there are plenty of nice touches. The bright blue brake calipers on our car helped to brighten up an otherwise quite dark exterior, while the large alloy wheels give it a distinctly premium air.

WHAT'S IT LIKE INSIDE?

The interior of the 2 Series Gran Coupe represents an excellent blend of the old and the new. We likethe traditional orange backlights for the buttons, for instance, while all of the leather used throughout the cabin has a robust, old-school feel to it. In contrast, the main screen – which now uses BMW’s latest operating software – is simple and easy to use, with the rotary controller to the left of you being tactile and precise.

We’re still not huge fans of BMW’s digital dashboard design – it still seems too cluttered now just as it did when it was first revealed on the new Z4 – but it’s sharp and gives the forward area of the cabin a cutting-edge feel.

As mentioned, headroom in the back of the car isn’t the best as a result of the sloping roofline. Though there’s plenty of legroom, taller passengers will find their heads competing for space with the roof if they’re sitting in the back. The boot is actually larger than the one you’ll find in the 1 Series too, though because of the narrower opening it’s a good degree harder to access.

WHAT'S THE SPEC LIKE?

Our car was finished in tip-top M Sport specification, which brings a full sport styling package, larger alloy wheels and a full sport suspension setup too. M Sport Plus adds an upgraded M braking system, an upgraded sound system and various high-gloss exterior trim pieces, among other touches.

The Technology Pack brought features such as adaptive LED headlights and a head-up display, alongside wireless charging. It’s this second pack that we see as the most worthwhile, adding genuinely useful kit for not a whole lot more money.

VERDICT

BMW’s 2 Series Gran Coupe might be another exercise in niche-filling, but you can’t say it hasn’t been a well-executed one. Those drivers who find the 1 Series too, well, ordinary and the standard 2 Series Coupe too cramped could well find themselves swayed by the in-the-middle Gran Coupe.

With its decent on-road manners, excellent economy and good build quality, we couldn’t fault them for doing so either. It might be there to fill a gap no one might have seen in the first place, but the 2 Series Gran Coupe is well-rounded enough to appeal as a genuine prospect in BMW’s current crop of cars.