Leaders of some of the greatest business failures have been those who seemed to have all the answers. In truth, no leader can assume to know it all. Market conditions, business cultures and industry innovations are constantly changing and to assume there is nothing ‘new’ to learn, is to fail.

Learning starts at the top. If you are developing others, then as a leader, you should start with yourself.

Progressive businesses have recognised the need to embrace a top down learning culture to drive and maintain strong performance and to gain a competitive edge.

The businesses and leaders that fail to recognise the importance of continual development and view it from a cost perspective, rather than an investment, are more likely to experience poor levels of employee engagement and high turnover of the most talented individuals.

Harvard Business Review research into leadership development has shown that leaders who are in learning mode develop stronger leadership skills than their peers. 

Learning mode refers to those leaders with a growth mindset, who are willing to set themselves challenging learning goals, capitalize on learning opportunities, reflect candidly and receive feedback fearlessly.  Only once a business leader has adopted this way of thinking can they develop a true learning culture within their organisation.

To drive your team and business forward, get passionate about learning and influence a learning culture.

Creating a learning culture can –

• Increase employee engagement and motivation
• Empower employees to be self-directed
• Build a growth mindset
• Encourage creativity and innovation
• Positively influence the business

6 steps to build a learning culture within your team and business:

1. Recognise and communicate its importance to future growth and personal development and make the culture come alive through regular initiatives
2. Commit to an ongoing investment. Demonstrate your commitment through continual investment in learning – especially when the business is under performing
3. Create a coaching culture that impacts on a daily basis. Train your managers how to coach others
4. Make learning easily accessible. Create opportunities for on demand and online learning, empowering employees to seek their own answers and solutions
5. Take full advantage of ‘on the job’ training. Learning doesn’t have to be a structured training programme away from the workplace
6. Encourage and reward success and progress

Learn to learn rather than learn to fail.

Spend the day understanding how you can maximize your potential, learning from some of the industry’s greatest leaders on the 10th November 2017, The Conrad Hotel, St James, London. 

This Leadership Event has been designed for General Managers, Deputy General Managers and Senior Departmental Managers, high potentials and emerging leaders in the hotel and hospitality sector. 

The day has been  created with the support of Martin Pepper of Maxima Training, to illustrate key leadership lessons from David Guile’s bestselling book ‘Potential’ and is aimed to be highly motivational with practical lessons people can use to improve their own performance and the performance of their teams.

The see the full list of confirmed speakers, learn more and book your place visit Maxima Training.

Subscribe today and receive tips, tools and business insights from David Guile. 

Click here to buy David Guile’s Amazon #1 best seller ‘Potential’.

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I was, therefore, surprised to learn of a recent Harvard survey that concluded that giving negative and corrective feedback is an integral part of the remit of being a leader, however, giving positive feedback and praise is only perceived as being optional.

Out of a survey of c 8000, 21% of the participants admitted avoiding giving negative feedback whereas a much higher number, 37%, admitted that they don’t give positive reinforcement.

 Is it not the time to shift the balance?

Praise and recognition motivates, builds self-esteem and confidence and makes you feel valued. It can influence a positive, forward thinking and valued working environment where teams are motivated to go above and beyond in their roles.

There’s also a science behind the benefits of praise. Pride, pleasure and an increased feeling of self-worth are all common reactions to being paid a compliment or receiving positive feedback. This is because it triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps control the reward and pleasure centres of the brain. As well as making us feel good, dopamine can contribute to innovative thinking and creative problem-solving.

Whilst it’s important to give recognition and praise, it must be genuine, authentic and succinct. If it’s not genuine or is overplayed, it defeats the object. If it’s too broad or general the recipient won’t believe it. Find something legitimate and almost as soon as you recognise it, give praise. By praising, you clearly demonstrate to your team members that you want them to succeed. The result of a simple and sincere well done has a positive impact on productivity, engagement and results.

Appreciate people throughout the day and catch them doing things well rather than catching them out doing something wrong and notice the difference you will make to your team and the culture of the business.

David Guile is an Executive Leadership Coach. Having worked his way up through all the managerial levels within the hospitality industry to CEO, he combines hard-won experience with a robust coaching methodology to provide insights, support and direction to help emerging leaders find, own and work their potential and the potential of others.

Subscribe today and receive tips, tools and business insights from David Guile. 

Click here to buy David Guile’s Amazon number one best seller ‘Potential’.

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However, the success of these programmes relies on being clear about the difference between high performers and high potentials.

Research and recent studies challenge the assumption that your high performers are your natural future leaders, your ‘high potentials’.  Results from a study by Zenger/Folkman suggest that a high potential individual is usually within the top 5% of employees within an organisation. However, the study also concluded that over 40% of individuals within high potential programmes may not belong there, based on their leadership effectiveness and ability, and more surprisingly 12% were found to be in their organisation’s bottom quartile of leadership effectiveness.

From my own experience, I can recall on many occasions when high performance has clouded my judgement on the potential leadership ability of an employee. The skill sets and approaches required to be an effective leader are different and on reflection, you must explore the differences between Management and Leadership.

Performance is about the here and now, with high-performance measured on the delivery of tangible results in a timely and effective manner. Potential is about the future and the ability to lead, motivate and influence results through others and to see beyond the task at hand.

The seven traits of successful individuals

When analysing the successful individuals that I have worked with throughout my career, who have gone on to reach their potential as leaders, the following traits have been evident:

• The ability to motivate and inspire others
• A hunger for continual personal development, which is self-initiated
• Developing relationships across all levels of the business and seeking out a mentor or coach to support them
• An awareness of their strengths and how to build upon them and use them for maximum impact
• Adding value and taking ownership outside of their remit for the benefit of the organisation
• Taking risks outside of their comfort zone and developing a resilient and receptive approach when not everything goes to plan
• Thinking about the bigger picture, rather than just the here and now

As you start to think about identifying your next generation of leaders – think again and look closer. All high potentials should be high performers, however not all high performers will have the necessary leadership attributes or the desire, to be high potentials.

David Guile is an Executive Leadership Coach. Having worked his way up through all the managerial levels within the hospitality industry to CEO, he combines hard-won experience with a robust coaching methodology to provide insights, support and direction to help emerging leaders find, own and work their potential and the potential of others. 

Click here to receive more valuable insights from Executive Leadership Coach, David Guile.

Click here to buy David Guile’s Amazon number one best seller ‘Potential’.

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My journey to create and write Potential has been motivational, challenging and rewarding in equal measure. As I begin to reflect on the process, I thought I’d outline some of the valuable lessons I have learnt and continue to learn.

1. Start with the end in mind. This advice from Stephen Covey’s book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” really resonated with me. So that’s exactly what I did. Before putting pen to paper, I drafted up a book cover. This helped create the focus and motivation to keep to deadlines and gave me an inspirational vision to work towards.
2. Success is more rewarding when it’s outside your comfort zone. Challenging yourself to do something different, something that’s outside of your comfort zone can be scary and uncomfortable. But once you’ve achieved it, the personal satisfaction you feel is far more rewarding. It also gives you the confidence and motivation to step further outside your comfort zone in the future.
3. Seek specialist advice and listen to it. Be receptive to input and ideas from specialists and act upon it. We don’t have all the answers. So seek out those who can support and coach you in the process and learn from them.
4. Don’t take feedback personally. The professional edit of the book was thorough and hard hitting. My initial reaction was one of disappointment and defiance as I was so personally attached to the content. I had to quickly accept that I was a novice author and the feedback was to help the book to be the best it could be. However, don’t shy away from challenging the feedback if you believe it compromises the essence of the message you want to achieve.
5. Having a great product is not enough. I have learnt that you don’t write a bestseller – you create a bestseller. Don’t underestimate the importance of marketing your product and getting it in front of your potential customers.
6. Bite sized chunks really do work. I wrote the book in 500-word chunks. A result of having a clear plan and structure. Invest your time in planning and creating a detailed framework, and you will find the process is more achievable than you imagine.
7. Tell yourself you can do it! I initially thought that I wouldn’t have the time or discipline to write this book. I then started to challenge my thinking and continually asked myself ‘Why not?’ I reminded myself and drew on the knowledge that I had completed an MBA and wrote a 30,000-word dissertation while carrying out a demanding and challenging job, which consumed much of my time. So what was stopping me now…?
8. Creating a habit makes it happen. By regularly taking a couple of hours in the early morning to write, I created a disciplined approach to the task. This approach quickly turned into a positive habit. It felt natural and comfortable to be at my desk typing away at the same time every morning. Positive habits can be created through a conscious intention to do something differently to make it happen.
9. It doesn’t have to be perfect. While attending to the detail is essential, I realised I was too caught up in trying to create the perfect book for everyone. I accepted that it would resonate with some people and not others. My realistic goal is for everyone to take at least one learning from the book to help themselves and others. It doesn’t have to be the perfect read.
10. Take time to reflect. Creating the space and time for myself to reflect and think things through has been rewarding and motivational. It has helped me to understand the importance of taking time away from the busy working environment to achieve some quality and calming thinking space.

Perhaps you are starting on your road to writing a book? Hopefully these lessons prove useful if you’re thinking about writing your own bestseller, whether personally or professionally.

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The Dynamics of Potential is an innovative business model aimed at being the best you can; optimising your talent. It’s about enabling you and your team to define your purpose, know your strengths, and achieve your goals.

Applied to either an individual, a team or a business, the model consists of four key parts – The Four Ps – each part is important in its own right yet integral to the whole, underpinning ongoing success and fulfilment, improving careers, and inspiring others.

Perspective

How well do you know yourself? Are you aware of your strengths? Are you using them to your advantage, to maximise your own and your team’s performance? Or are you allowing self-limiting beliefs to restrict opportunities and the potential that lies within you?

Gain a clearer perspective of yourself and others and you can create a solid foundation to define your purpose effectively. To articulate who you are, where you are now and where you aspire to be?

Purpose

Do you have a clear sense of purpose? Of what you want to achieve and what’s important to you? Have you defined personal values that can shape and influence your decisions? Have you visualised your future, devised a plan and know how to implement it?

Having a sense of purpose is fundamental to achieving your potential and getting what you want out of life, both personally and professionally.

Performance

Are you getting the best out of yourself, your team, your business? What areas of your performance require support and increased focus? How can you continually improve performance to create further opportunities?

Enhancing your performance and that of your team will lead to the business becoming stronger, creating new opportunities for you and all those associated with its success.

Progress

Are you clear of your next steps? Are you in a position of influence and strength to take control of your development and future? How do you create a learning culture to support others towards their personal goals?

Progress is essential to the success of you, your team and your business. Embrace change and continually strive to grow and develop, to maximise your potential and to be ready for the next challenge.

Fundamental to the Four Ps of Potential being effectively realised, are the critical success factors of Positivity, Balance and Environment. Each can be life changing and potentially transform the performance of your team and business – if they are consistently applied in equal measure. Most importantly, you can influence all three of them.

The Critical Success Factors for Potential

Positivity

A positive frame of mind encourages a can-do attitude in yourself and others. Positivity motivates, influences and breeds success. You can choose to be either drained and demotivated by always looking at the downsides, at what hasn’t gone right, or be energised and upbeat by the positives and the opportunities. Inspirational leaders and managers look up and look forward, and draw on their positive mindset to encourage and motivate themselves and others to success.

Balance

Adopting a balanced approach in your personal and professional life creates a strong foundation from which to take decisive, effective and consistent action. Balance provides you with stability and influences a more inclusive and rounded approach.

Environment

Working environments and company cultures can be very different. Creating success and fulfilling your own potential and that of others can be dependent on a culture that’s conducive to your values, your thinking and your preferred working style. Some professional cultures can stifle you and make you question your own potential and value, while others can be energising, supportive and rewarding.

Find a culture and environment that’s right for you or one you can positively influence and make a difference to. Use the Dynamics of Potential business model to support your thinking, performance and continual development so you can understand and then achieve your aspirations.

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Traditionally, mentoring is a top down process. With a more experienced individual offering support, encouragement & advice to someone less senior to themselves. But is this approach becoming outdated? And limiting? Organisations might be able to reap more benefits if they’re open to reversing this traditional mentoring process. If they source mentors from up and down the ranks.

Regardless of seniority or experience, we all possess different strengths, weaknesses and areas of expertise. No one person can have all the answers or be fully versed in every aspect of the business.

Which is where reverse mentoring comes in. Whether it’s about company strategy, leadership, or how to get the best out of social media and new technologies – there will always be something that we can learn from others, whatever their age or rank.

Reverse mentoring can be used to an organisation’s maximum advantage, as an extra source of help and support, to promote learning and strengthen relationships across all levels within the organisation. It can encourage employee engagement, giving younger and junior staff members the opportunity to educate and inform the more senior. Something that might be especially useful in the areas of social media, new technologies and understanding a younger market demographic.

Reverse mentoring can help build confidence, value and recognition in the younger team members. While giving senior Executives the opportunity to get to know more about the business leaders of the future. The chance to understand what keeps their more junior colleagues motivated and engaged, as well as getting a fresh view of their thoughts about the business, its processes and systems.

Of course, the initiative does require thought, guidance, considered selection and review. Effective communication is essential, to ensure that both mentor and mentee feel comfortable with the process and to create chemistry that’s respectful and engaging so that everyone can get the most from the opportunity.

Reverse mentoring is about making the most of the strengths within the business by assigning the right mentor to the right mentee, regardless of whether they are more senior or junior. Get it right, and without a doubt, everyone will learn something valuable, and keep skills developing and an organisation thriving.

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When faced with such opinions, it’s easy to see your comfort zone as a place that holds you back. To consider the negatives rather than the positives.

However, this isn’t the full picture. There are in fact many positives for staying in your zone.

5 reasons for staying in your comfort zone

• It builds self-confidence and confidence in others
• You develop high levels of experience and knowledge within your existing environment from where you can provide support to others
• It provides personal and professional stability
• You build strong and lasting relationships
• You gain happiness and contentment by being true to yourself

Try asking yourself the following questions.

If you’re comfortable in your comfort zone, how is it perceived by you and by others?

Is your comfort zone a strength, one that reflects your professional stability and loyalty?

Or can your comfort zone be perceived as a weakness, highlighting a lack of ambition and adversity to change and challenge yourself?

Recognise and embrace how a position of comfort might be perceived as a strength. And use this to your maximum advantage.

And if you need to step out a little of your zone, try making your comfort zone a little more uncomfortable, for you to develop and fulfil the potential within you. Rather than leaving it altogether.

By understanding and working it properly, your comfort zone could be the place to provide you with the opportunity to make your greatest contribution.

So, what are you waiting for? Go make yourself comfortable.

———-

If you want to realise your own potential on the 20th February I’ll be publishing my new book, Potential. To get all the latest publishing news sign up here.

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A New Year can mean a New You. A clean piece of paper from which to plan for successful and productive times ahead. A fresh start, where you can challenge and change your approach, your mindset, your life. To become the person you’ve always wanted to be.

Yet while setting personal and professional goals and targets at the beginning of the year provides focus, direction and a positive outlook, the impact will often prove to be minimal and short lived if the expectations we put upon ourselves requires significant and immediate change.

Change is good. It is positive, progressive. It encourages self-growth and development and can provide a platform for both personal and professional opportunities and enrichment. However, change should also be realistic, measured and purposeful if it is to be sustainable and yield the best results.

As you reflect and consider some of the changes that you wish to make, whether personally or professionally, first spend some quality time reflecting on your strengths, achievements and the positives in your life. Use this as a foundation for identifying the areas where change can be most beneficial and impactful.

Acknowledge and embrace what works for you now, instead of focusing on a ‘major change programme’ or a ‘significant transformation’, identify small changes that you can readily and effectively implement. Changes that will enhance and strengthen your current situation, as well as that of others.

Achievable, actionable and realistic small steps of change can prove incredibly motivational. Successes can be quickly realised and acknowledged, paving the way for more impactful, meaningful and sustainable results.

In business, managers and leaders, especially if they are newly appointed, will invariably seek out things to ‘change’ to make their mark and to add value to the business. However, it is crucial change is initiated for the right reasons and not just for change’s sake. Be clear about the rationale for change and then breakdown the change process into small steps and actions that can be readily and effectively implemented, and then quickly recognised and celebrated.

New year = New you? Why not? Just keep the changes achievable and realistic for maximum impact.

———-

If you want to realise your own potential in February I’ll be publishing my new book, Potential. To get all the latest publishing news sign up here.

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I was delighted to accept an invitation to present alongside Alex Gregory at a recent event in London hosted by Stanton House. Alex was part of the record-breaking rowing team and won gold at London and Rio in the coxless fours.

The presentation topic was focussed around sustaining peak performance with Alex drawing on his personal experiences and learnings from the world of sport and with myself applying some of my learnings and experiences from a business context.

I was aware that Alex would be bringing along his 2 gold medals to show to the audience which initially made me feel a little anxious about my own successes, especially in the business where successes are invariably less tangible and less impactive.

He explained that  his gold medals represented his immense achievements, his unwavering commitment and his emotional sense of pride. They acted as a permanent recognition and reinforcement of his successes and achievements and a trigger for his associated emotions.

It got me thinking about success and influenced me to stop and reflect on my own achievements  – something that many of us find a challenging task to do.

Success is relative and will mean different things to different people. We all have successes , big and small, personal and professional, that we should be proud of and celebrate,  however not  all of us will have a gold medal or an accolade to show for them and as a result they can be easily forgotten, pushed to the backs of our minds and mentally discarded.

Don’t lose sight of your gold medal moments  –  achievements and successes that mean something to you. Recognise them , embrace them and continually acknowledge them and find ways to tie them into your thinking and to reinforce positive emotions. Success breeds success and can significantly influence a positive mind-set from which personal confidence can grow and lead to  greater success and achievements.

I followed on from Alex’s inspirational story of success and achievement and I began my presentation with my gold medal moments –  highlighting some of my professional and personal achievements and their significance to me.

I then posed the following  questions  to the audience :-

What are your gold medal moments?

What are the future gold medal moments that you are currently working towards?

Coaching, whether sports or business related, helps to build confidence and self -awareness  and aims to support you to recognise and enhance your strengths and successes in order to continually improve personal and business performance.

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