BLOG

STRENGTHENING LEADERSHIP

MAKING A DIFFERENCE FOR OUR PEOPLE AND THE BOTTOM LINE

Research from the Chartered Management Institute shows that organisations that invest in such programs see, on average, a 23% increase in organisational performance and a 32% increase in people performance, with small and medium-sized enterprises benefiting the most. 


https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/business/5751121/willie-maccoll-cherries-winner-human-resources-expert/

Top CHeRry:  March 2022

The 2022 CHeRries Awards, run by the Press and Journal and The Courier, in association with Mattioli Woods, was held at the P and J Live on Thursday 24 March.  The awards recognise excellence in the fields of human resources, organisational development, training and recruitment.


Among those recognised this year was Willie MacColl, who was awarded the Top cHeRry Award for Outstanding Contribution. This is presented to an individual nominated by peers within the industry, who is recognised as a leader in their field.

 

Willie is an Organisational Development Specialist who currently runs his own business, Glenbrex. He has extensive experience in HR and OD, and currently acts as a Specialist Advisor supporting a wide range of services and industries with as little as two people to 18,000 people, that span start-ups and companies operating at and growing to £100-£200 million. He is also an Associate Facilitator and Trainer for AGCC as well as a registered Specialist with Remarkable (previously Investors in People Scotland). 

 

Offering Leadership Development programmes and working with companies/organisations as a Facilitator, he offers bespoke learning for leaders at all levels, as well as teams.

 

In accepting his award from sponsors, Mattioli Woods, Willie said, “I was delighted to receive such an award – my aim is to support companies to strengthen their culture and build strong teams.” “For a modern employer, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s a good investment for any business – studies show developing leaders and teams can make as much as 20% difference to the bottom line.”

March 2022:  C-Me Colour Profiling

Building successful teams is crucial to delivering long-term success for any organisation. Teams need to share a common purpose - they must be equipped to understand, support and trust each other - that should mean that challenge is welcome, ideas are encouraged and that there is a will to win. Using a colour profiling tool that can help people understand their own strengths and behaviours as well as how they perform with others.   

New Paragraph

February 2022

How are you engaging with your employees?

Employee consultation can take different forms - it can be very informal in nature or very formal; it can be aimed at a group or individuals. Whether a pulse survey, a discussion or maybe this is a time to catch up with those 1:1s - with the prevalence of remote working, it has never been more important to keep in touch with your employees. This will help maintain the best of relationships and a strong culture.  But remember to respond in some way - 'you said, we did' is usually a good approach.

#employeeengagment #goodemployeerelations #goodleadership #engagementmatters

August 2019
I attended a great Inverness Chamber of Commerce/DYW event, hosted by Scot Gardiner (CEO) and John Robertson (Coach) at Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC. The focus was on leadership styles and the use of colour profiling in professional coaching, something the football world has been using in a simple form for some time. Their presentation was spell-binding: As they focused on others they had worked with past and present, they shared their experiences and learning with the audience, helping them see how a high performing team can be built by shining a light on the coaching and practising involved.

They were very humble and it has to be said, glossed over their own developed leadership skills and expertise. However, it was clear that beyond the use of colour profiling they were able to:
  • create vision
  • develop a plan and have a structured approach
  • engage their team
  • build trust and passion
  • motivate and manage performance
  • recognise the contributions and reward efforts
  • learn lessons
  • improve
As a business owner or leader (at any level), it is inconceivable to think you haven't considered how to create a top performing team, yet it is something quite different to implement. As a business, often less emphasis is on the analysis, practicing and improving, yet that is what can make all the difference. Here are some of my thoughts.

Rarely does anyone start from scratch when building strength in a team - even when you think you know your team, some analysis of team strengths and dynamics is a great first step. Colour profiling can help in this regard. It creates focus for the individual as well as for those leading the team. Then comes the understanding and the plan: John Robertson talked ably about the routine he follows weekly, setting the vision, coaching and developing footballing skills. Think of the expert team or orchestra - here, is often the difference - they practice. He also described how he works on the hearts and minds to motivate people; building understanding, confidence, courage and determination.

The commitment, comes from within each individual but can be nurtured and encouraged and Values play their part.

In football, while its almost all about the training and preparation in advance, its the team that makes it. In each game, the team execute the plan - in an operational context that's what we want all of our teams to do - play their best game.

Once the game is over and the celebrations are past, its back to the drawing board to learn lessons and start all over again, all the time having an eye on the next generation of talent (at all levels), a point both gentlemen made.

So how did John use the colours? In a football context, he used them to identify and gauge the varying levels of buy-in to win each game: He used the different hues to see who had their sights set on winning, and needed little or no encouragement to achieve; who needed to be given some detail and more purpose; who were those more likely to think about where it might go wrong and how to counter that and; who needed to see more clearly what is in it for them before they would commit. The Coach explained everyone had something to offer, just that each had to be coached and energised in a different way. Using the colours to help was clearly a way, that added real value.

In a business context, the team is central to operations. Colour profiling is used by many of the top companies and organisations. I was unaware that, like practising, it was so deep rooted in football.

Using colour profiling to develop high-performing teams is something that is available to any company: Profiling in this context, is about behaviours and how they can help individuals, teams and organisations grow and develop - the dynamic within a team can then be honed to create that F1 feeling and performance.

Building successful teams is crucial to delivering long-term success for any organisation. Teams need to share a common purpose. To achieve, they must be equipped to understand, support and trust each other - that should mean that challenge is welcome, ideas are encouraged and that there is a will to win. Using a tool that can help people understand their own strengths and behaviours as well as how they perform with others, together is a great way to do this; colour profiling offers this in a really simple but effective way.

What led me to use C-Me was the fact that the tool is contemporary and easy to understand. People can quickly tune into what it offers and can use it to develop. Helpfully, it thinks about preferences and strengths or about being one colour or another. For me, it is about strengths in all areas and how as individual, we can flex and develop in all areas. It makes perfect sense when it comes to leadership qualities - it is important to have qualities and strengths that run across all levels and all disciplines. Critically, it shows the dynamics that exist within the team - essential when you are aiming for excellence - and where gaps and opportunities are.

While I know lots of big-name companies use colour profiling, I wasn't aware it was so well embedded in sport. My thanks to Scot Gardiner and John Robertson as well as the Inverness Chamber of Commerce for a great event.

#leadership #ictfc #teamdynamic #improvingteams #Cmeprofiling
September 2017
This week the Queensferry Crossing opened: An engineering feat - history in the making. The radio montage “The Queensferry Crossing” on BBC Radio Scotland explained how this wondrous construction is already a global attraction – it’s the largest bridge of its kind in the world and is able to withstand all kinds of Scottish weather and rigours. 

The new bridge spans the mighty Forth river, itself a powerful force. It’s an engineering accomplishment: from development, the design started with the foundations. One engineer commented that the human-eye/mind favours simple lines and so the engineers looked for simple lines and concepts to give strength and longevity. The journalist remarked that this was underpinned by a lot of well thought through engineering - it’s a construction built from other smaller constructions.  

In numbers: the Queensferry Crossing is 1.7 miles long; cost £1.45bn (down from £4.4bn estimate); contains 35,000 tons of steel; is made up of 23,000 miles of cable and 150,000 tons of concrete. 7 wires make a strand; 109 strands in each stay and 288 stays. On the people side, many skilled men and women have worked together so very hard to raise the bridge from its foundations - 10 million hours of peoples’ time was used in the project. 

While all this was going on, in my role as a Remarkable Specialist, I was in the North East of Scotland with a roomful of business leaders and senior figures speaking about company culture. Our aim: to discuss, describe, assess and improve culture – a mainstay in the workplace. Our numbers: 17 companies were represented, 20 senior figures and between us, we had an estimated 350 years of experience to call upon.

This was the first of a series of events (please, look-out for more) - At this point a quick plug and thanks to our host, Aberdeen Science Centre. We started to develop our basic understanding. During the session, we recognised that culture was like a bridge: something that spans generations, teams…you get the picture. It has to stand on a strong foundation, solid and immovable in some respects, but with a need to flex and respond to the changes in temperature and weather. You might be interested to know, the bridge’s movement is significant (7m horizontally) yet too small for drivers to notice. The bridge engineers remarked that it is rarely the wind that causes the dynamic problems but rather the resonance or stalling that can take place.

This was but the start of journey for us and the parallels were remarkable: Our group found they agreed their cultures may be stronger and more tangible if they could build strong, smaller components. 

The bridge will last 150-200 years. Here’s hoping we can build such strong and lasting cultures in our organisations too.
#MakeItRemarkable #CorporateCulture #FindingtheFit #OneQuestionManyAnswers
Share by: