What's in a name?
Alistair Small
I am not a "small" person. Only by name. If you saw me "small" would probably not be one of the words you would use to describe me. It is the same for my family. Brother, father, Grandfather. It is only the surname. In my size, personality, poresence, or voice. I am not a "small" person. So wherever my family name came from, well somebody somewhere had a sense of humour. A sense if humour that I am proud to have kept. Now it isn't easy. Not when your surname is Small. The best example is travelling. I have travelled a lot whether on holiday or for business. Planes, trains and automobiles as the quote goes. As the other quote goes, if I had a € for every time somebody, who initially looks stern and serious, reads me surname and then looks up from behind their desk, smiles and says "..but you are not so small". There are thousands of variations. "But they should have called you Mr Big". I could go on. I have a lot of experience in this. I could get angry. I could sarcastically say yeah I have never heard that before. I could respond by looking at their name badge and applying the same logic if they are called Mrs Green, Mr Baker or Herr Schneider. Yes I could do all of those things but I don't. And here is why .....
1) The Power Of Connection.
People want to connect with each other. Just walk down the street and watch people. Nowadays most people are on their phones, checking social media. People want to connect with each other. While doing it virtually is the common way today, there is still that very human desire to connect. If my surname allows someone to connect to me, if only for 1 minute, and it breaks up the daily routine, why should I not want that?
2) Don't be defined by a title or name.
Being defined by a name is all too common. "I am only an order entry specialist" or "I am not the CEO". We too often define others, and ourselves by names and titles. Why? It is restrictive. It is uncreative. There are enough rules and regualtions in modern day life already, why should allow a name to also restrict us.
So don't be defined by your title, job role or even your name. Be who you can be, not what a name limits you to be.
Oh and next time you come across a Mr Small who isn't so small, use your unlimited creativity to come up with a new way to make humour out of his name. You never know he may never have heard anyone say that!
Having worked in the corporate world for nearly 20 years I know all about the constant drive to deliver more results with less resources. I don’t think any corporate company is immune to this and I am sure there are employees like me every year saying “How we are going to achieve that?. Again”. Yet we do. We all seem to pull rabbits out of hats every year. And again in 2020 we will be asked, again to once more we are asked to deliver more, with less. There is a tipping point though, when the traditional methods for achieving this just don’t work anymore. So organisations across the world look for new methods. Coaching is one of those methods. It is not new, it is not revolutionary but it is gradually becoming part of the overday normal business discussions. The problem is though that coaching is actually counter-intuitive. You have a line manager that is spending every moment trying to fix issues, deal with escalations, keep an eye on the behaviours, performance and motivation of their team, and in many cases also being a ‘working-manager’ and completing the tasks they were doing before taking on the current line-manager role. So while all of this is going on, along comes HR and says “have you thought about adding an extra task to your workload. I recommend you spend at least an hour per month with every team member. Sitting them down in a room and just talking to them” I have of course para-phrased the HR conversation but it certainly rings true in orgasniations I and my friends have worked in. The reason coaching is counter-productive is that it is a mid to long term payback. Last year I finished a 4 year cycle of workshops, exams and certification with Co-Active Coaching so I know the mid to long term benefits. Improved employee engagement. Increased empowerment. Actually freeing up of the managers time. But these only happen in the mid to long term. It takes time. And patience. And more time. And perseverance. In a corporate world where we are increasingly only looking at the short-term, when line managers are fighting to find a small percentage of time free, and then when they do it is swallowed up by a request from above for an ad-hoc report, well how do we expect the line-managers to find the desire, let alone the time, to seriously commit to coaching? Now I know some of you reading this will say “but hang on is coaching your own team members appropriate?” Well that is great question and for another blog. In this instance let’s say we have two line-managers, who have two equal size teams. Lets say they agree to coach each others teams. It still doesn’t resolve the issue of how can managers afford to coach when they have so much else going on as I have noted already. One way of looking at this is turn it around and ask “Can your line-managers afford to NOT coach?” The stats all show that companies that have a strong coaching culture are more likely to have stronger performance, more engaged employees etc. So can this be done? In this short-term "more with less" economy, how do we start down this path? It has to come from the top. Executives have to give the permission. And I don’t just mean the board signing off on the coaching programme and telling HR “go and make it happen”. Action not words is what is required. Are your senior managers receiving coaching? Are your senior managers extolling the virtues of coaching? Are your senior managers sponsoring coaching in the organisation? If the answer to any of these questions is no then we need to talk. Expecting a line-manager to commit to an activity that is going to hamper their ability to deliver on short-term goals is just not going to happen UNLESS they see it happening above, they are empowered to let it happen from above. In times of uncertainty, in those times when we are not sure of which direction to choose, we all look for leadership. And commonly we look at those above us for guidance. If you are in a leadership position (at whatever level in an organisation) whether you like it or not, people are watching you. Right now. They are looking at you to set them an example. We can build the most amazing programmes but if there is not the commitment from the top, sadly all that effort and creativity is being built on very shaky foundations. So while coaching to a line-manager may seem counter-intuitive, to ensure you start building a coaching culture correctly, get your foundations from the top. Yes, that’s counter-intuitive as well isn’t it!
