I'd like coaching please

I want to provide a look at how you should be planning your management training for your organisation. There's a lot of iffing and aahing about what constitutes good management in today's world. There is structure you can and should have in place and all it takes is a bit of planning.

The first thing I have to talk about is whether or not you go external or internal. That's to say should you bring in an external trainer or have someone internal deliver the training? The answer to this lies in where your budget lies and how you choose to spend it. There are some very good external trainers who will do a stellar job of training in this field. Just please, whatever you do, get some 'free' or 'taster' training first as you don't want to pay £oooo's for someone only to realise the training has been dead pan. To further this, if you have used a particular external trainer you're happy to recommend to others please let us know in the comment section below.

Also, I'm not getting into defining leadership over management. In truth, the two terms are so interchangeable that it only really makes a difference to those concerned with titles.

Ok so there are 5 categories of management training you need to give thought to.

1) Management Essentials. This is about giving the managers who are in their role anew or within a 18-24 month old a core look at the things they need to know. Policies, procedures, core management skills such as objective setting, feedback skills, performance management, basic coaching skills, some models on motivation, delegation and flexible management styles. These are the core things that any new manager just has to know. Without this they'll forever be lost in the sea of management and never know if they're on the right path.

2) Effective Management. This should be for managers who are experienced in their role, have had teams to look after and need to know what more is expected of them. At this level they should be exposed to a psychometric tool of some sort to raise their own self awareness and give them insight into how other personalities are likely to either support or clash with one another, including their own. There should be some further development of actual management models such as Situational Leadership or a Coaching model such as GROW, better description of techniques surrounding motivation either delving into studies from Gallup or Roffey Park, and some form of business insight or business acumen development from leaders in the business.

3) Emotional Intelligence. This should be for managers who are growing in their role to a senior role and need to be able to understand how to work with a wider group of people and increase their influence across the business. Emotional Intelligence is a much disputed area of management devleopment in recent years. To be honest since competency frameworks were introduced, EI is the last big model introduced in the last 20 years. The dispute arises from the fact it's mainly credited to Daniel Goleman. If you can get over that, there are many good EI models developed by practitioners who are credible and very reputable. Namely Dr Reuven Baron or work doen by Consulting Tools. This should also include a proper 360 survey tool to truly unravel an indicidual and allow for genuine personal development.

4) Global Management Effectiveness. In an increasingly global world, this level of manager needs to be aware of cultural differences, how to get the best out of teams in other countries, how to deliver on projects that involve global clients, effective multi-national communication. This is a truly difficult topic to handle and needs someone with experience in this field to deliver this.

5) Leadership Excellence. This is for those at senior levels within a business who are looking to find out what it is they're missing. Training at this level is often about how to inspire teams, deliver a strategic vision, deliver powerful messages, operating at a level where you're thinking about the future and long term development of the business.

So where does Coaching fit into all of this? Honestly? At every single point. But that's a whole other blog post. In essence coaching should only be utilised if you are certain of the goals and purpose. If you think you need it because you've been hearing lots of great things about the great work Bob has been doing with other people similar in a role to you then you've got the wrong idea about where your personal development needs to be.

And you can take the categories I've named above and give them any other title you want to change them for. This is intended to provide a framework for overall management development. There are other considerations I've not given them time of day to such as succession planning or talent management. To be honest though you can take those concepts and adapt the above to fit those.

Are emotions good for business?

I love Dragon's Den. It's a fantastic bit of reality TV which I enjoy. And I hate reality TV. So this is one of the few I indulge in. It's in season 8 which goes to show how strong the show is. The format of the show is simple enough. Pitch your product to a panel of investors ("dragon's") and if they believe enough in you and your product, they'll give you the investment you're looking for, and take some equity in your business.

The presentations are what I like best about the show. You have to have a good product, but sometimes that isn't enough. If you can't sell it, they won't buy it. In one of the winning pitches last week, the presenter cried because of the praise heaped on her by Theo Paphitis (one of the dragons). I cried out on Twitter that crying is cheating in presentations - and I stand by that.

It prompted a conversation with a fellow L&Der, Stella Collins, around what emotions are allowed to be displayed in the workplace. And this is an interesting topic. So let's have a peek at what research tells us.

The question isn't so much do emotions have a place at work, I think it's more, how emotionally intelligent are your workforce? This also ties in with the Intelligent Behaviours theory I've been working on. First let's look at an emotionally intelligent workforce.

First, it's important to recap what emotional intelligence is. It's a form of multiple intelligences, and Daniel Goleman took selective work and coined the term emotional intelligence (EI or sometimes referred to as EQ). He argues that EQ is distinctly different from IQ in that it can be something which can be learned over time, where IQ is a static ability. Within this, he describes five broad sets of behaviours that you should remain conscious of if you want to be successful in your dealings with others: social skills, self regulation, self motivation, empathy and self awareness. Over the years, a variety of measurement tools have been developed to identify areas of weakness and strength in EQ and subsequent techniques to help develop your overall EQ. Some of these that come to mind are Baron EQi and Consulting Tools 360 EQ tool.

Having an emotionally intelligent workforce means you need a team of people (not necessarily managers) who understand what it means to be emotionally intelligent, how to respond to others, and how to develop others capabilities of being emotionally intelligent. For example, if Bob is angry and is shouting at Berk, the first port of call for most people will be to turn a blind eye and gossip about it later, then for someone to make a complaint to HR, then for some formal action being taken, and all of it on both employees formal records. That's hardly what Bob or Berk want to happen, regardless of how inappropriate their behaviour.

If someone is emotionally competent though, they will be able to deal with the situation immediately, with autonomy and confidence. This means, addressing Bob initially and taking him away from the situation, letting him vent, empathising with him, understanding what brought him to that level of anger, and then allowing him some time away from the desk and team. It's about taking Berk aside and doing the same thing. And then, if both are agreeable it's about getting them in the same room and being open with one another about their disagreement, and once it's been aired and genuinely resolved, they go back to their team.

This sounds all rosy, but this is a blog post and I'm limited by how much I can elaborate. But you can quite comfortably see there is a process driven way of dealing with this, and there's having an Intelligent Behaviour mindset as I've described.

Equally, if Bernie is upset and starts crying, how do you react to this? Typical behaviour may be to just shy away from dealing with it, and probably recommending he go home for the rest of the day, and on his return ask him how he is, but not really deal with it. Or you can allow him to go away and cry, seek him out, and then talk with him to find out why he's so upset. If it's something which can't be dealt with there and then, is it something which will be a barrier to him working for the rest of the day? If it is, then he should go home as there's no sense in him being at work. If it isn't then you need to provide some coaching for him so he can focus on the work ahead for the rest of the day. You then touch base again at the end of the day and find out how he is before he goes home. The next day you catch up with him one last time, just to ensure he's ok.

What some large companies would tend to do in this situation is to send either of the people above to a counsellor of some sort and seek professional help. And that may be appropriate for a small percentage of the workforce, but for most situations on a day to day basis, an Intelligent Behaviour mindset suggests there's a much better way to deal with people when they're displaying strong emotions.