Developing People

Our Second Chapter of the book which is now available on Kindle Unlimited and on Amazon @ http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01ASFE6K6?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Developing People

"The sum source of your skills and abilities is the willingness to develop others to surpass your own levels."

Developing people and companies has always been in my DNA. I can remember being told when stepping up to be a manager at Haven Holidays by one person, "Being a manager is not about the current years finance, if you are smashing your targets that is fantastic but it is about developing people and processes. If you can do this and when you leave the company it should continue to grow from strength to strength then you know you have done something right. You will never be remembered for the amount you achieved over target. You will be remembered by those who you have helped to develop." I have taken this to heart and believe that I have managed to do this and make it one of my core strengths in most of the job roles that I have since had.

While at Haven Holidays I was in charge of various venues and one of these was a ropes course. Where there was a young seven year old boy, the first time his mother and I spoke we discussed his dream of completing the course. When I first saw him try I would have dismissed him as a lost cause but I believe that you can develop anyone's  abilities even if they seem unlikely at the time. He was short for his age and thus would have more difficulty then most at scaling the climbing wall not to mention the will power and courage it would take to complete the whole course but this did not deter me it must have been just before his eighth birthday as he was too young to start the development when we all first spoke about this almighty challenge. We agreed that six months should be the time frame to achieve this goal a which would start on his eighth birthday. Soon after he turned eight we had our first session. It was a group session on the climbing wall I needed to discover what I was going to be facing. He didn't make it off the ground but I had started. I knew where he was on the development and could now build a plan.

As with most beginners I drew up the plans to create a development that would allow him to achieve his ambitions, I invited him to come down with his mum to have a session on the climbing wall so that I could put in to place the important seeds to the further development. It was in and around this session I learned that he would need to have conquered the ropes course in four months not the original six due to a planned birthday he was to attend. But on the one to one session he managed to take his first steps up the wall. I had achieved what I had set out to do in the session plan and was happy. After a few tries he was getting stuck at a lower area of the wall and this was an obvious frustration but he had passed what I originally expected from this session with the aim just get off the floor with both feet. He was making it far enough so he was climbing, he could do it and only then did I realize the biggest issue which in many people was the fear of heights. It was not wondering if he had the ability, his frame or will power. This was an important lesson to me because I thought that being shorter he may struggle to achieve this goal.

He had hit the point that he was not going to get over on this session whether it be because of the fear of heights, lack of believe or been unable to visualize the path up . Deciding it was most likely the latter I requested that before the next session he came and watched a few people climb the wall. I struck gold on this session. He brought his ever smiling face to the climbing wall and watched a few of the smaller children managing to get past the point where he had been stranded. This information was key to him getting further up the wall.

Knowing that time was against us he took his next session a few weeks later, this time making it towards the top but then the fear factor defiantly kicked in. He had reached a point where he was looking down for support and increasing this fear more and more with each look down. Like all good coaches I took him away from the situation and agreed for him to come on a group session. I was not booked in to take the session, yet one of my team was the lead. Knowing that if he remained looking up the chance of the fear returning would be considerably lower. I spoke to him and made sure that he knew he had done me proud already and just achieving that had made him twice as good as most people who walk past and look at the apparatus. Even mentioning that his Mother would never dream of trying it so there was no need to feel any pressure. 

When he went to climb, I took to the ladder by the side of the wall and clambered to the top. I looked down towards him as he set off in his steady fashion. His climbing style was strong as he kept flat to the wall and used his knees well, he didn't rush and was very steady on his feet. I believe to this day he had one of the best techniques I had seen from a younger boy. If he didn't I don't think he would have made it but his willingness to listen and take on board the instruction made him a dream to coach. It wasn't long before he began to get unsteady with the height and I began to cheer him on, asking him to just look at me and not listen to anyone else. Left foot I said now like you did earlier push and grab. Within a few steps he was a close to the top so I extended my arm  I did this he grabbed the top rock and moved his way to the top of the wall. His wide smile was amazing, he always had a smile which showed the joy that could only be in a child's heart who was care free and in a loving home. Explaining for him to lean back so he could be let down from the wall I abseiled down the other side of the wall before completing his certificate. This for me was one of the most satisfying moments of my life. It really cemented my belief that development of individuals whether personal or professional is important.

To this day I do not think there will be another moment in my life like this experience because I knew that he now trusted the rope. This trust would see him conquer his fear and do himself proud on his friend's birthday.

I had many more times while at Haven that I really helped the development of some children for example there was a girl in her teens at the time who was in Scouts I think but to receive one of her badges she had to have a sports development plan and coaching plan designed which I put together for her. She was a harder style to coach as she was chatty and often didn't follow the script compared to my eight year old climber. She studied Archery and Fencing mainly with me and her Fencing was strong towards the end but her concentration was more on the social side of the sport which I really admire but as a coach and trying to get coaching points across was awkward. This is where my style really shone as a Sports Coach and it wasn't because I was the best at the sports in question but because I cared for the quality and I was always trying to change the style to fit the individual I was coaching. In any walk of life there will never be a one size fits all way to help people and until we as people understand this, we will never be able to really start to change the world that we live in.

My favourite example of this was with this young lady who enjoyed talking and often came with her mum to the sessions. Trying to get her to think about strategy in the sport that she was taking was difficult but many people I know as coaches would just have kept trying the same technique. This one session after talking about what she had done for several minutes at the start of the session I had already formulated my plan. I was quite a lot like House M.D. at this stage of my career as a sports coach. I was heavily on pain medication following an accident and used a stick to get around. So the techniques I used even though they were often diverse worked and the gem of information came at the start of the session, because the skill is to listen to key information  even though the individual thinks you are just having a regular conversation.  Then using this and the information you have gained you find a cure to the issue you were aiming to improve on the session. I remember she mentioned chess in our conversation and I got the idea to translate chess to Fencing. Before this I had never found someone I could use the similarities on. In Chess you must think a few steps in front of the opposition as you do in fencing, if every time you back off a step the other person may drop their guard slightly as they step forward following your step back as they step forward and you can gather your footing and lunge. Like in chess you may sacrifice a piece in this part of combat, you gave them ground but a loss of ground can sometimes be all you need to bring them into your attack. It was rare she would beat me at Fencing but I do believe she had the ability to by the end of the couple of years she spent learning, she never really did see the strategy in the sport to the same degree as I would have wished but she still gained enough knowledge to improve to the level she wanted to be which is all a coach can do.

Developing people who pay to be developed is one aspect of the development process but there is a second developing which is the development of our friends. We often do this one without thinking. During my time in Bournemouth I made a really good friend. We often went out after work and had a few pints, well I would drink and she would have soft drinks as she was driving. She tried her hardest to make me more of a country kind of person but failed. I remember the days well there was the day with the bar tender with an eye patch near the harbor, the day with the candle lit bar, the day we went through the field of excrement and the day where we both found new homes. Our lives really were in sink from the first time we met and everything seemed to work in tandem with each other. I would nearly get in a relationship she would get in a relationship, she would move home I would move home, I felt annoyed with work she felt annoyed with work. It was a very special relationship and someone who I was in touch with when deciding to create this manuscript.

I know I would not have been the same person without meeting her and for sure she would still be living at home if she had never met me. We would have weekly drinks in an amazing bar called The Broadway in Bournemouth and would discuss how life had been treating us. By my third pint I was always more talkative and more willing to give slightly more strong advice than on my first but the advice often remained very constant and to the point and I would say this to anyone who is in a relationship that you are feeling you are not 100% happy. Life's too short for if's and buts. You never regret what you did do, you only regret the things that you didn't do. You cannot have your life controlled by someone else as you are the only one who can make a decision that will input drastically on your life. I have never been great at taking my own advice that is for sure.

The third and perhaps the one that most managers that read this will be able to see what they have done themselves is the development of team members. This is something that most companies now put as a key part of their mottos but unfortunately there are many companies who do not follow through on this promise unless you bend over backwards for the managers own gains. But that's the issue with most managers as they seem to forget what it was like to be at that level where they would have wanted the helping hand. I have been a manager for five of the last six years. I have been employed by various companies but I vowed that would never happen to me. I would never allow myself to be dictated to with a carrot of development.

I had a few team members I could choose from when discussing how I would develop team members but my real success story was Luke. He was more than a team member as he really cared for the people he worked with. I honestly think he will achieve great things in any career he decides is right for him. Sometimes as a manager or a friend you have to stick your neck out to protect your development. You have to believe in people enough to say no this is not fair and I will not allow it on my team. Luke helped the whole region week in and week out, he was loved by everyone and that is something that makes good team members. I developed him to be able to run incentives for the region in my absence which is something the majority of the team leaders would refuse to do for the region. He had the ability to take on extra jobs for the region and this was the only thing that saved his job after 'hoodygate'. I had spent months developing him with one to one conversations and discussions about him and what he enjoyed like me he loved suits and like me he loved to talk to lots of people. It really was a partnership made in heaven. It must have been half way through his time with us that he reported to me that there was a suspicious customer looking at the back of the bureau. This got reported and shunted up the chain of command that evening with little conversation about the real issue of the suspicious customer . My understanding from what I was told the images were released at 11:30 in the evening  and Luke was in his hoody in the footage showing the suspicious customer and therefore not in uniform. I personally believe I made the right decision as I decided that at all costs I had to protect my investment, for me he was the strongest team player I have ever known the arguments about whether he should be sacked as he was not in uniform. For a few hours in the evening it seemed he was to be fired as very few people were willing to back him up with his breach of uniform but fortunately his hard work for the region saved his and my job. I would have continued to fight for him as there is something to be said for strong loyalty. It wasn't long until we were winning incentives again hitting a very plausible 60% buy back rate. We won half of the incentives that we could win and we did that because big business put together incentives aimed at promoting certain stores or behaviours and Asda Travel Money was no exception and did just that and all the loopholes possible that could be used was used by Luke. There was many incidences where everyone in the company would send many long and entertaining e-mails to him but none more than the threats to get him a Mr. Blobby army to harass him on his last day. His last day was emotional but to understand what it means to create the correct management style for each individual I knew I had it right with Luke. I remember one month before he left the company for much better things which I had urged him to do over a period of time he rang me drunk as he declared he rang me slightly worse for wear during a night out to thank me for the help and guidance as well as inform me that he was handing in his notice. This was something he would tell me he would not have been able to do sober as we had formed a close bond within the bureau. I guess when you have worked within a small close knit team it can be hard to hand in your notice. Management is all about making the bond with your team, each manager will bond with one team member more then another they will have more in common but that does not mean that the development cycle is different. My other team member at Asda Travel Money was not interested in development and was using it as a part time job and just that. But even though we didn't have the same interests outside of work I still worked with her to offer her any development she needed. I believe there was as much respect in both relationships even though they were both different. Like every aspect in life like I said about development of skills and the development of rapport can never be handled the same from one person to the next.