This month, I trained (new to me) communication classes for Pryor Learning Solutions and I realized that we do not own the good and the bad traits of our personalities when communicating. We understand how we naturally communicate, but we don't realize the differences in others' personalities and communication styles, and we label those who are different than us as "difficult." Most people are not difficult -- we find it difficult to communicate with them because we naturally communicate differently.
Understanding yourself and what makes your personality difficult for others to work with, is the first step in learning to communicate more effectively. Secondly, try to understand others' perspectives in thinking, especially when it is different from your own. Thirdly, when having difficulty communicating and working with someone else, try to communicate in that person's personality style to improve situational understanding and work effectiveness.
It is not easy to change how you communicate or to see a problem situation from someone else's perspective, but it will help you become a more effective communicator. I enjoy helping people own and understand their strengths and learn how to improve upon their weaknesses. I have resources to help, as I am certified in RightPath profile instruction and I will be teaching Pryor's "Communication Skills for Women" in Maryland and Virginia in July -- in my hometown of Frederick on July 9th. Please contact me for more information.
While instructing "Leadership, Team-Building & Coaching Skills" public seminars for Pryor Learning Solutions this month in Pennsylvania, I heard a lot of attendee frustration on how to work with "problem" team members effectively. In this class, we discuss assessing team members' skills and attitude to determine how to coach individuals to capitalize on their strengths and develop their weaknesses within the team.
We re-framed the conversation to how leaders can coach teams to benefit from diversity in team members' perspectives and work through conflict, thereby producing better results as a team than could be obtained individually.
The four methods of leadership coaching that we discussed are:
- Relating to team members who have high skills, but poor attitude, to develop positive attitude to contribute to the team productivity.
- Training high-attitude and low-skilled team members to develop their skills, possibly paired to learn from high-skill team members that the leader is relational coaching.
- Counseling team members with low skills and attitude to determine how to address their training, personal and organizational issues making them a "problem" player.
- Mentoring team members with high skills and attitude to keep them motivated and empower them to develop into future leaders.
Effective team member coaching is the key to building a synergistic and highly-productive team. Leaders who understand what motivates each team member can effectively match individual goals with team and organizational goals. Contact us for training and consultation to develop your coaching skills and maximize your team's productivity.
As of this month, Rogers Consulting LLC and I transitioned from just national training to training internationally. I lead "Leadership, Team-Building & Coaching" and "How To Manage Conflict & Confrontation" for Pryor Learning Solutions on-site at Lac La Ronge Indian Band in Saskatchewan, Canada. There was snow on the ground in Canada and I happily came back to our warm Spring weather!
This is not the first time that I have trained on-site for a Pryor client, last month I taught a Project Management Workshop in Pittsburgh, PA. On-site training is even more valuable than attending a public seminar in that it enables more of your co-workers to learn and work together toward organization-wide professional development. You can request who you want to train for you and customize the topic to your organization's current situations. As a trainer, I always try to apply the training material to students' own lives for effective learning and application of course content.
I am happy to assist clients in planning training topics and formats. Feel free to contact me to discuss your training needs.
