What is the prevailing climate in your team or in the wider organisation?
Is it positive, energised, enthusiastic, confident, fun? Or is it negative, depressed, cynical, pessimistic, stressed? It's probably somewhere in between, with all of these characteristics and behaviours appearing from time-to-time and for different people.

If you've tried to improve things by displacing the negative attitudes then you've probably found that the prevailing culture is resistant to all your efforts to change it. Turning it into the dedicated, productive sort of environment that you want requires a top-down change in behaviours.

Why is it so difficult to change the culture? Are some of these observations familiar?

What is the problem? If you are the manager, they have to do what you say. Right? Well, people don't always do what you say. They're quite likely to do what you DO though! So what examples are set? Who are the role-models? What behaviours are rewarded, perhaps unintentionally? Why are they allowed to behave this way? Presumably "they" are more important than the change you're trying to make. This belief will be reinforced by ambiguous messages from top management. Some people resist any change. They are just negative about everything! It's true that some people are more motivated to keep things the same than they are to move towards something new. And vice-versa for others. They might also be more interested in problems than in goals. There's a clue in that as to how to influence them... When I try to get people involved in improving things I get no response. Perhaps your communication skills aren't up to the task and you need to develop them. Perhaps there's "homework" or pre-lobbying to be done. Some people are guaranteed to raise the same objections every time. They will never change. This type or response can be symptomatic of a lack of "behavioural flexibility". In other words, if you can't imagine yourself doing what's being asked of you, then you can't do it - literally can't. In these circumstances, more pressure will just cause stress. I have known some managers who are very good at making things happen, despite opposition. How do they do it? Effective "change agents" behave differently from everyone else. By analysing what they do we can all learn to get the same results.

How it works:

A combination of group sessions and individual coaching to transform attitudes and raise the general level of interpersonal and influencing skills.

If required, coaching in specific techniques to prepare team members to be the agents of cascading change.

Minimum up-front commitment: a two-hour workshop introduces the team to the programme and engages their support and enthusiasm. The programme will only proceed beyond this introductory stage if the team is motivated to take on the challenge.

Integrates with your other development activities:

Topics covered in the programme

Subjective experience
How your internal world determines your success ...

Communicating and understanding
A simple model of how the brain processes and stores information that shows how complicated it can be to understand each other ...

Linguistic transformations
The three processes that shape your model of the world ...

Representational systems
Do you think of things mostly in terms of pictures, sounds or feelings? How can you detect someone else's preference?

Three sources of resistance
" Rapport and pacing " Ashby's Law and behavioural flexibility " Values and Beliefs

Step into my shoes ...
Taking different "perceptual positions" ...

Anchoring a resourceful state
How to get into the physiological, mental, emotional state you need to be in when you need it ...

Presuppositions
Certain beliefs that empower you ...

Language, frames, reframing
Choosing your words for maximum impact ...

Thinking styles
How you respond to any situation is "programmed" by your preferred patterns of thought. Recognising this allows you to broaden your range ...

Timelines
The way you relate to past events and to the desired future depends on the way you "map" time. People have different ways of doing this and no-one realises it!

Modelling an effective agent of change
What the "expert" can't teach you because they don't know how they do what they do!

Well formed outcome
Beyond SMART objectives. The nine factors to consider in goal setting ...

Planning your change campaign
Stategy, tactics, actions and accountabilities.

This stuctured learning programme is supplemented by one-to-one coaching as required. This is usually highly personal in nature, covering issues raised by each individual. Potential show-stopping problems are dealt with here.

To find out how this could work for you, simply complete the form below and I'll contact you to follow up.

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