The advantages of identifying and understanding your...IgnitionTheme

Your ignition theme helps you to “get going”. It tends to stimulate your thinking, feeling or behavior. This “ignition” or “spark” could be linked to ideas, actions or feelings. This specific theme acts like a starter that energizes you, and gets you going. It might be intentional or unintentional. The more you understand the dynamic of this Ignition Theme, you understand how to leverage it best for your own performance and energy.

To help you identify your Ignition Theme, ask questions like:

• Is there a specific theme that tends to “kick in” and help my thought, feelings or behavior get into action?
• Is there a specific one of my Top 5 themes that I know I need in order to get started?
• Which one of my Top 5 themes seems to energize me?


Why it helps to understand my Ignition Theme

Should you identify and understand how your Ignition Theme functions, you will be able to leverage it at the right moments and at the right time. This is not only beneficial in order to use it when you need to start and ignite, but also when to avoid using your ignition theme because you need to relax. Stimulating your Ignition Theme at night, for instance, could lead to not being able to sleep.


FAQ’s on Ignition Themes

• Can your Ignition Theme change over time? - Yes, just like with your Core Theme, this theme is dynamic and not static.

• Can my Ignition Theme be lower than my Top 5? - Yes, and it often is. It is then advisable to explore other themes with your Talent Guide in order to discover a possible theme.

• Could I have more than one Ignition Theme? - Although you might think it is possible, usually what happens is that another theme reacts to the Ignition Theme immediately. This is theme dynamics in action.

• Does everyone have a specific Ignition Theme they could identify? - No. Not all people can identify with an Ignition Theme concept, and therefore it must never be forced.

• Can my Ignition Theme be the same as my Core Theme? - Absolutely. This actually often happens.

• Are certain Talent themes more prone to be Ignition themes than others? - Yes. The most common Ignition Themes out there are themes like Activator, Achiever, Competition, Focus, Discipline, Maximizer, Command, Strategic, Learner and Positivity - although any theme could be one. Can you think why these are common Ignition Themes?




- By Dries Lombaard, C.E.O. Africanmosaic

Next time: More about your Relaxing Theme

Want to know more? visit our website at www.africanmosaic.com

The advantages of identifying and understanding your... Core Theme

We are starting a new series this week, all about the advantages of identifying and understanding certain Theme traits within your Top 5 Talents. Africanmosaic Talent Guides have been trained to assist people with the process of this identification and understanding. We strongly advise that you contact an accredited Talent Guide to assist you with this, rather than just trying to make sense of it on your own. The true power of this comes through a journey with a Guide.

Our first focus will be on your "Core Theme". You can also think of this as your "main Talent", your "strongest Theme" or as we sometimes refer to it, your "Funnel Theme".

Identifying your Core Theme:

An important thing to realize about your Core Theme, is that it does not necessarily follow the order of the StrengthsFinder Report. That means that your Core Theme is NOT per definition your Nr 1 Theme on your Top 5 Report. It could be any one of the Top 5 Talents. Identifying it is therefor a very practical exercise of self awareness and experience. The best way to do this is to ask the following questions:

• Which one of my Top 5 Talents are most visible in everyday life, both to myself and others?


• Which Talent will I never trade for any other one, because I will feel helpless without it?


• Which Talent gives me the most energy when I use it?


• Which Talent Theme out of my Top 5 will others use most to describe me?


• Through which one of the 5 Talents do the other four talents "flow"and become active?


• If I could describe myself by choosing one of my Top 5 Talents, which one will I choose?


• If you think of a "funnel", which one of the 5 will be at the spout (bottom) of the funnel, so that the other talents works "through" this theme in order to be active?

Although the identification of your Core Theme is a very personal exercise based on self awareness, it is very important that you will be able to describe and support your choice to a talent Guide. Sometimes we could be projecting and mislead ourselves within this process. It is also a good idea to get some confirmation by explaining and discussing this with people you know well, especially colleagues and people who see you "in action"often.

Understanding your Core Theme:

Your Core Theme has a tremendous influence on your Talent mix and dynamics. (To understand your personal talent dynamics, talk to your Talent Guide). Of the 5 "spices"that your Top 5 Talents adds to your mix, your Core Theme will mostly be the strongest and add the most spice and taste to your thoughts, feelings and behaviour. When under pressure, your Core theme will kick in strongest and drive your performance. Understanding this allows you to play to your strengths much more effectively and with more intention.

Your Core Theme also gives you a specific identity, in that it becomes your springboard for the way you approach problems and challenges. Knowing this gives you an edge.

Understanding how your Core Theme shapes your other 4 Talents (and, in the case of you knowing your Full 34, it shapes all the rest) to the extent that it becomes an important part of your decision making and interaction with others. The Level 2 Talent Guides (trained to facilitate teams), will tell you how important Core Themes become in Team dynamics and performance. Knowing your Core Theme, and embracing and celebrating it, therefor gives you and those around you and advantage for interaction and strengths based performance.

The other advantage of understanding your Core Theme and identifying it, is that it helps you with clear identity. Someone who embraces and celebrates their Core Theme will be outspoken with certainty, and therefor confirm it by saying "I am a Maximizer", or "I am an Activator", or "I am a Woo".

FAQ's on Core Themes:

• Can your Core Theme Change over time? - Yes, it can. This does not mean that it changes in every situation you find yourself in. But, the influence of different environments and seasons of your life could definitely have an impact on where your Core Theme will position itself in terms of your Top 5 Talents.


• Could your Core Theme be lower than the Top 5...like at nr 6 or 7? - Yes, but very, very seldom. The whole definition of a Core Theme causes it to be strong, which will place it within a Top 5 in nearly every case.


• Could I have more than one Core Theme in my Top 5? - Yes. It is rare, but your Talent Guide is also trained to help you confirm if this is the case. Then you should embrace that fact. It has an interesting dynamic if that is the case. You will then define it by saying "I am a Strategic Achiever", or "I am a Harmonious Relator". Your Guide will help you to confirm the order of these two talents in the definition.


• Does everyone always have a Core Theme? - Yes, although you might be in a space where you are unsure of what it is. Never force the identification. Give it a lot of thought and time if you are uncertain. This often happens when you are in a space where your environment are changing, like in a new job or when you have relocated. Never force the identification of a Core Theme. It will not help anything if you do not affirm and embrace it.


• Can I intentionally decide to change my Core Theme? - Not really. When you do that, it is more the skill of leveraging your strengths and playing to it in a specific situation. But you could give more attention to focusing on a specific Talent at any given time. This is actually more the art of talent Dynamics than it is changing your Core theme.

[Next time: The advantages of identifying and understanding your...Ignition Theme.]

- by Dries Lombaard, C.E.O. Africanmosaic.

Want to know more, or become a Talent Guide yourself?

Visit our website at www.africanmosaic.com

7 Deadly Sins of Leadership Communication

by Linda Hurley, as published on www.mbanetwork.co.za

Organizational communication can involve convoluted and elaborate protocols. It is always a challenge for leaders to find the best ways to get their message to employees and to access employees' ideas and feedback.

Making mistakes in individual communications or the channels that are used can create fear and disillusionment and ultimately negatively impact productivity. This happens and can be managed but there are seven deadly sins of organizational leadership communication that should be avoided.

1. Invisibility

Organizational leaders need to be visible. A figurehead is just that, an inanimate object that cannot engender loyalty or inspire motivation. If all you are is the name at the top of an organizational chart no one will care what you say or what you think.

If you want people to follow you, you have to let them see the person behind the position. This means getting out from behind the desk in the large corner office and interacting with staff at all levels including those located remotely.

2. Need to know

Sometimes information is commercially sensitive and needs to be protected however often the “need to know” principle is used as a default. Restricting the dissemination of information limits the ability of staff to progress objectives and solve problems.

Targeting communication to the audience is important, but targeting is not equivalent to restricting. If staff believe they are being excluded from information channels without good reason they will cease to care and you will lose the benefit of their intellectual capacity being applied to further business growth and performance.

3. Cascading important messages

Key messages need to be direct. Cascading important messages through the organizational hierarchy dilutes the message. Each person who receives the message will apply their personal frame of reference to the communication and decide what the message means to them.

Their interpretation will be passed on to the next level of organization who will then apply their own frame of reference until the final recipient receives a communication that may have little or no similarity to the original message.

Using intermediaries to pass on communications also runs the risk of any of those intermediaries deciding the message does not need to be cascaded any further and as a result the communication fails to reach its final destination.

4. One way communication

Leadership communication is not only about passing on information or directives. Understanding what is happening within the organization is essential to business success. A sole owner of a small business may be able to keep in touch with everything happening day to day but larger businesses require communication channels to feed information from the front line back to the leadership.

5. Selling the message

The amount of information that people need to deal with daily can become overwhelming. Being part of the organization's leadership will usually mean that your communications are given at least cursory attention but it will not ensure the entire message is received.

People are motivated by self-interest. If you do not include “what’s in it for me” in your communications they will soon be consigned to the recycle bin as generally irrelevant. Identifying the impact on individuals also minimizes the risk of misunderstanding creating disruption to productivity as individuals try to determine what the message means specifically for them.

6. Using a single channel

There are many ways to communicate and using the one you are most comfortable with all the time will mean some people never get the message. An all staff email will not reach some staff on the front line. Delivery drivers for example may not have access to email.

Using an intranet bulletin board will only reach those who have time to search and read. Even road trips to interact with staff face to face will miss some people who are not on site at the particular time or day.

Staff who have to learn about communication from the leadership of an organization through informal channels assume they are considered unimportant. Many of these staff are the face of the company for customers and can have an impact on the company's reputation.

To ensure you have great ambassadors on the front line you need to think creatively about the best methods to communicate with staff and use multiple communication channels to convey messages and receive feedback.

7. Ignoring informal channels

Information flows most quickly through the informal channels in a business. The water cooler, the tea room and other places staff meet informally are the place to find out what is really happening in the business on a day-to-day basis.

Ignoring these channels of communication because they are impossible to control is risky at best. Organizational leaders need to find ways to tap into the wealth of information and knowledge these informal networks contain and use them to increase the likelihood that leadership communications are heard and understood.

The larger a business becomes the more difficult it is to keep the entire workforce focused on the vision and goals of the organization. It is essential to establish and maintain open communication channels that foster two way interactions between organizational leaders and business staff. Avoiding the seven deadly sins of organizational leadership is a great place to start.

Visit our website at www.africanmosaic.com

Bringing out the best in quiet Employees

By Linda Hurley, as published on www.mbanetwork.co.za

The days are long gone when employees were seen and not heard. Workplaces today value participation and recognize the power that many minds can bring to different situations.

For quiet employees the methods used to encourage participation can be quite daunting. Brainstorming sessions suit people who like to think out loud and bounce ideas around. Some people have a more introspective style of operating and the loud, participatory workplace can make them shrink into the furthest corner of the room.

Having an introspective style creates unique difficulties. It is hard to think clearly amid the noise of a group. Often when they do wish to contribute quiet employees are overpowered by the more extroverted participants and their contribution will be missed entirely.

Because they are deferential, others often interpret their style as an unwillingness to participate. Eventually they begin to be excluded as they cannot conform to the group's style.

The first thing you can do to bring out the best in these employees is to educate all your employees about the different styles and preferences for operating that occur naturally. There are some fairly sophisticated profiling tools which can be used as part of a workshop designed to get the team to better understand each other. Myers Briggs and DISC are two common tools used widely across the globe.

Once the team understands that contributions can come in all shapes and sizes, you can create opportunities in the design of team gatherings to let everyone contribute regardless of their style.

In addition to group interaction, build in opportunities for individual thought. A variation on brainstorming is to have each individual write their ideas on sticky notes. They do this in isolation. All the sticky notes are then posted on the wall and discussion and debate begins.

Use role plays, or smaller groups in session work and provide each person with a specific role to undertake. This will overcome the problem of quiet people being overpowered in a free for all.

Think about rotating the chair in your team meetings. This helps develop all team members but quiet members in particular will learn from the experience of taking control and leading the group.

Bringing out the best in a quiet employee is not about changing their behavior. To bring out their best you need to create an environment that supports their participation and encourages their development in a way that suits their style.

Visit our Website at www.africanmosaic.com

How to encourage Self-Initiative in Staff

Written by Linda Hurley - as published on www.mbanetwork.co.za



Successful companies and managers recognize that using the intellect of all their employees is the key to their success. To encourage employees to use self-initiative it is necessary to develop and support an environment that fosters this behavior.

Telling an employee that we expect they will use their initiative to solve problems and confirming that we believe they have the skills and abilities to do so successfully will give them the confidence they need to begin but we can do more.

Empowerment

Where employees have to seek permission for every action they take they will cease to think for themselves. Managers who check every piece of work undertaken by their staff inhibit the employees' ability to solve problems for themselves or initiate actions that improve service to customers. When we delegate the authority to allow employees to make decisions, within their span of control, they are encouraged to solve problems and find and put in place improvements to the way their work is done.

Learning

When people are empowered they make mistakes. Rather than punishing mistakes ask what could have been done differently. Take some time to determine how the experience can be shared not as a failure but as a learning experience for everyone. Treating mistakes as learning opportunities rather than failures reinforces the message that the use of self-initiative is valued within the company.

Coaching

There are many solutions to each individual problem. If the answer is provided every time a question is asked the employee will not have the incentive to use their own initiative to resolve situations. Rather than telling employees how to do a task or deal with a dissatisfied customer encourage them through open questions to come up with a solution themselves.

Reward and recognition

Asking employees to use their initiative to provide a better, more customer responsive organization is asking for more than someone to simply answer the telephone according to a script or process a certain number of invoices in a specified time frame. The use of self-initiative requires additional effort and commitment to the organization and should be rewarded appropriately.


Rewards can be linked to annual assessments or be specific to certain tasks or achievements. Rewarding initiative will give the employee a tangible reason to continue to make the effort required to use their initiative. Publicly recognizing the use of self-initiative through a team celebration, certificate presentation or other appropriate means can help to spread the message to the whole organization that self-initiative is a valued trait.

Fostering self-initiative requires a workplace culture that supports staff to take control over their own work. Coaching and developing staff in problem solving techniques, protecting them from the ramifications of making honest mistakes and specifically rewarding the successful use of self-initiative will go a long way to laying the foundations for a responsive organization where every employee contributes fully to the success of the company.

Visit our Website at www.africanmosaic.com

The Basics & Benefits of Mentoring

Mentoring is a key part of helping others to develop. It is an individual based approach to learning. Successful individuals in all walks of life can usually name more than one mentor who helped them on their way. In business the focus of the mentoring relationship is usually the long term development of an individual's career or small business.

Mentoring relationships work best when both parties are committed to the relationship and are clear on its aims and limitations. When a more experienced person agrees to assist someone with their development there are benefits for both the mentor, mentee and the organisation generally.

Basics of Mentoring
The mentoring relationship is primarily for the benefit of the mentee. Ultimately the success of the relationship will depend on the mentee's willingness to drive the relationship and make use of the knowledge gained.



The mentee should have a clear idea of what they wish to gain from the relationship. It may be a better understanding of the company, a clear view of the path to a senior position, guidance in making complex decisions or many other individual things. The beauty of mentoring is it is flexible enough to cater to a variety of needs and to change with the needs of the mentee.

A mentor acts as a sounding board, provides information and shares their knowledge and experience. The mentee uses the learning gained from the interaction to further their understanding and career.

When commencing a mentor relationship it is essential to establish rapport and trust. Not every person will be the right person to use as a mentor. Confidentiality and privacy are important and must always be considered. The mentor and mentee should develop a shared understanding of mutual roles and discuss expectations on both sides.

The cornerstone of most mentor relationships is regular discussion. The mentee should take responsibility for setting meetings. The mentor should strive to allow sufficient time and ensure there are no distractions when meeting.

In addition to discussions a mentee can learn from a mentor by observing the mentor in action or having the mentor observe them in action and provide feedback. A mentor could also introduce their mentee to their network or invite them to work on a project together.

Benefits for the Mentee
By finding the right mentor a mentee can acquire new skills and knowledge, improve their motivation, and obtain encouragement, guidance and an extended network. They will expand their organisational awareness, obtain accelerated learning and apply direction to their career.

Often having a mentor results in greater job satisfaction and provides a sense of control over the mentee's own development. A mentor provides a trusted confidante to discuss ideas and the mentee can develop new and different perspectives.

Benefits for the Mentor
Although the ultimate beneficiary of the mentor relationship is the mentee a mentor can gain a high level of satisfaction in assisting another person. It also provides an opportunity for them to think through their own goals and achievements, expand their horizons and give them insights from another's perspective.

Often motivating and challenging, mentoring adds another skill to the mentor's own competency base. It can enhance counselling, listening and coaching skills, provide reciprocal learning, add value and revive motivation.

Benefits for the Employer
Mentoring provides a process for the transfer of intellectual capital. It usually enhances the commitment and enthusiasm of employees and increases productivity through fast tracked learning and development.

Mentoring can also strengthen links across the company, increase the versatility of staff and help to develop future leaders. It also complements other training and development activities.

Mentoring has been used for centuries as a means of learning and passing on the wisdom of experience to the next generation. Many organisations today have formal programs however informal mentoring relationships provide just as many benefits to all participants.

This article appeared on www.mbanetwork.co.za

Visit our Website at www.africanmosaic.com