Over the last few blog posts we have explored some vital management skills that are imperative to nail if you want to become a great billing manager, whilst helping your team produce the results you know they are capable of.
Having a range of management tools is a secret of high performing managers and there is one thing in particular they all do well.
They seem to have an uncanny understanding about what is going on for their consultants and team in general.
10X YOUR TEAM’S OUTPUT
“Your team does a lot of work – but they could do better. “
They all have a high EQ (emotional intelligence) which I’ll cover more in another post, a fundamental part being the ability to appreciate more than one point of view.
Tell me, have you ever come across someone in your life, could be your significant other, or member of your team, who always seems to be able to make you appreciate the other side’s point of view?
A good friend of mine has a saying.
“One Story is good until another one is told.”
True isn’t it?
What if there was a way of being able to develop this skill? Imagine how quickly you could get to the issues and gain understand so you could really help your consultants improve their results.
The good news is there is a technique that is often taught in advanced thinking courses such as N.L.P. It’s known as Perceptual Positions and here is how it works.
Perceptual Positions refers to a skill you can learn that will help you adopt more points of view than your own.
The fact is you can’t truly understand someone until you’ve experienced what it is like to be in their situation. It’s essential for any recruitment manager to be able to form a perception “as if” from another’s point of view.
Being able to see life and experiences from the point of view of another is such a powerful skill.
It gives you a way to understand people and is vital to improving communication processes in relationships, negotiations and of course interviewing.
I personally use this technique on almost a daily basis so I can appreciate what is happening for my clients.
The normal process is to adopt three positions to improve understanding and awareness.
- Self
- Other
- Helicopter ( or sometimes called system)
Here is how it works.
Self
First of all it’s important to clarify what your own perspective is of the situation. If it’s a new trainee and they aren’t ‘doing’ what you have asked them to do ask yourself a few questions.
What are you observing in them? Are they avoiding doing a task or are they confused? Observe their body language, tone of voice and of course your own. How are you feeling about the situation related to how important it is to you? What is your body language and voice tone saying?
With this knowledge what are you now noticing?
10X YOUR TEAM’S OUTPUT
“Your team does a lot of work – but they could do better. “
Other
Now step into their shoes; I will often change my body position. You can even adopt their body language and tone. What is the reality from their perspective? As they /you look back at you what is going on for them? Are they confused? Scared? Do they understand what is required of them?
When you carry out this process for the first time don’t be surprised that by doing these first two steps you will experience some insights that might surprise you.
Helicopter
The helicopter view will give you even more insight because here you are now viewing both sides of the situation in a position of detachment. This is how arbitrators work because of the insight it gives them and why they are able to resolve many conflict situations.
Here you get to see your perspective and your trainees. This will give you a lot of new information.
Recently I used this technique with a new billing manager who was getting totally frustrated with a new recruit.
As we went through the process she realised that she hadn’t given enough detail to the consultant about specifically what she wanted to happen and importantly how.
The new consultant was really keen and ‘scared’ of getting it wrong, so didn’t ask for the detail. A classic case of both parties not asking questions and consequently making assumptions.
Powerful stuff, because she could now take this awareness into every conversation she was having, with every consultant she managed. This meant that not 1 but now 6 consultants finally understood what she wanted to happen.
Summary
Where might you use this technique? There are lots of situations where it will give you untold insight and help. Who in your team would you like to understand more about? Imagine the difference that will make.
Want to find out more about how to manage you team to deliver more ? If the answer is yes then join my free webinar: The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses
Warmest regards,
