It’s not uncommon for me to be invited in by businesses to provide insight and understanding to new first-line managers. These are typically people who have been promoted to their first role where they are responsible, not only for their own workload and performance, but for that of others.
In this case the company was part of a large outdoor advertising group. I led an ‘Introduction to People Management’ workshop to a group of 10 new first-line managers. It was an overview about some of key business and people management models to apply.
The overview session went very well. Following discussion with the company’s Head of People, we devised a further four in-depth workshops (with the same people) covering:
- Managing time effectively.
- Creating a positive team culture.
- Enabling high performance.
- How to have development conversations.
These sessions are all broadly in the areas of leadership and development, and there are plenty of competent people around who could deliver these. I’m able to add an extra dimension into the teaching with my neuroscience experience. As a Neuroscience Practitioner I apply this in terms of how the brain builds and applies strategies to deal with perceived or real challenges – in this case, the challenges of leadership and people management. This knowledge focuses on mental strength and therefore, helps to build and maintain a person’s sense of well-being and emotional stability needed for their role.
Neuroscience in action
Taking the first session about managing time. A new first-time line manager will likely have to make many more decisions than in their previous role. An individual may find making decisions quickly difficult – a natural procrastinator. In the session, along with lots of pro-active time management tools, I built understanding of their or other’s triggers for indecisiveness. Once a new manager learns to recognise their trigger and how to counter it, that person’s performance and value to the business is enhanced.
I’ll update this blog once some of the sessions have been completed with my observations as to how they have gone.