Manage a round table discussion

Round table discussions are a great way of exchanging informal ideas and finding new approaches to old problems. But unless they are focussed, and are set up with clear outcome in mind, they can be seen as unproductive. What is the best way to...

Manage A Round Table Discussion?

The Key Challenge

Although a Round Table Discussion is designed to exchange ideas, it needs a host or leader who will take responsibility for setting up and managing the event. The leader should be prepared to set the subject for discussion, making clear the boundaries of the conversation, and the key points to be covered. The subject of the meeting should be made clear in invitations and any pre-meeting notes. The leader should also decide whether a formal agenda is appropriate. An agenda is useful if there are several ‘must discuss' topics, so that everyone can see what has to be covered.

Carry out thorough preparation

A Round Table will succeed if it has been prepared thoroughly. One of the leader's tasks should be to write down plenty of good questions (up to 20 for a 1-2 hour discussion) to trigger conversation and dialogue. The questions should ‘open', for example, ‘ How should we…., What do you think about…., Who could carry this out….' The leader should also try to find out the main areas of interest/ conflict beforehand, and work out in advance who is most likely to dominate/ remain silent/ lose focus.

On the Day

Introductions

Even if your Round Table delegates know each other, your discussion will start well if it is introduced formally. Keep the introductions short – ask each person for name/role/ company info, and then 1 or 2 sentences about their interest/ expectations in the discussion topic.

Ground rules

Set some ground rules for the conversation – for example: please feel free to contribute; ask questions whenever you wish; everyone is responsible for the success of the meeting; please maintain courteous to each other even if we disagree and we will finish at 2.00pm sharp.

Getting started

Prepare a short introduction to the subject, highlighting what you see as the main points for consideration by the group. Indicate if anyone has particular expertise to draw on with in the group. Acknowledge as many participants as possible during the introduction – it will encourage broad participation, and make each person feel their presence is valued. Have a good open question to get the conversation started once your introduction is finished – it can be an idea to address this question to a specific individual. Warn the individual before hand that you will ask them to speak first. And don't forget that your introduction should last no longer than three minutes.

Managing the group

There are several techniques you can use to keep the discussion flowing. If there is a pause, summarize your main impressions so far, and invite comment. Alternatively, you can invite another delegate to summarize. Ask an open question to an individual or the group, or move to a new subject .

Potential conflict

If there is a potential conflict between participants think carefully about how to manage this. Remember that if everyone agrees about everything there is nothing to discuss, and that in many cases it is fine to agree to disagree. It is important that everyone can make their contribution without interruption; all you need to do is affirm each point of view without necessarily agreeing with it. It is also important that you keep acknowledging each person and if one person is dominating, thank them for their contribution, and then directly invite other contributions.

If the discussion rambles and loses focus

Ask the group to return to the key issues. Return to your strong open questions to bring the group back on track. Be provocative – ask a question that will generate a clear and strong response.

Outcomes/ conclusions

Think carefully about outputs. Few people will read extensive notes of a meeting. One good approach is to put the key points in an email to delegates, but keep the points to a maximum of six for a 1 to 2 hour discussion. Your key points should include any actions agreed (though this is rare for a round table) and a promise of further information or updating to be kept (otherwise there is no point and no-value adding).

Closing

A prompt finish should match a prompt start. As leader you should thank everyone for their participation, agree a next session if appropriate and ask your delegates to spread the word if you want to encourage wider participation within your organization.

What is ROI?

Most managers are now asked to justify the decisions they make in terms of a ‘return' to the business. For example, will the business get a better return from an advertising campaign or a PR campaign? So …

What is Return on Investment? (ROI)

ROI is a family of measures that look at what is received in return for an initial investment.

Why is ROI important

Resources are not infinite – so every business and manager has to make decisions about how to use resources available to them. Making the best use of the resources available is actually the key to success in any area, not just business.

Measuring ROI in financial terms is traditionally done in 3 ways. A measure of time, a measure of proportion, and a measure of cash.

1. Payback - Simply put, the time it takes to get back the amount of money originally invested. So if I spend £1000 on a sales promotion, how long does it take until there are enough sales to generate an extra £1000 of gross margin.

2. Rate of Return - This is a percentage figure. It measures how much more than the original amount I will get back, as a percentage of the original amount. For example, if I spend £1000 and get back £2000 the rate of return will be 100%. If I get back £1500, the rate of return will be 50%.

3. Net Present Value - This is a cash figure, and really allows for the fact that getting £1000 in 12 months time is worth less than £1000 now. How much less depends on inflation. There is a standard (if complex) way to calculate this figure. Example: if inflation were 10% per annum, you would need to have £1100 in 12 months time for it to be worth the same as £1000 now.

Companies may make their investment decisions based on any one of these methods, or a combination of all three.

What about non-financial measures?

How can we measure ROI in training, PR, recruitment etc? It still makes sense to talk about ROI, whatever we are investing in. Marketing departments can measure the cost of acquiring, serving and keeping customers. Operations can put a value on the importance of key suppliers.

Once a discussion about the value of a business activity is underway, it is always possible to find some proxy measures that will indicate how fast that activity is improving or declining. It is then possible to make a broad value judgement about the likely return from a specific investment.

Is measuring ROI in training difficult?

You can make it difficult for yourself, or you can get help. There is a great tool to measure ROI on technology projects already available - more in the next issue.

Presenting the ROI

If you are a sales person – you need to be able to present the business case for your offer – which includes the ROI. Someone else may calculate it for you – but you need to be able to have a credible conversation about the results.

Making time for Time Management

In our work, most of us have to make choices about how we use our time. We often find that we cannot achieve everything in the time we have to do it. So how can we

Make Time for Time Management

The underlying issue of time management is not about controlling time, because time ticks away regardless of whatever we do. Time Management is about personal decision making that will help us to manage what we do with our time more effectively.

Firefighting can be fun, but it isn't a good time management style unless you work for the fire service. When it happens, use these top tips to avoid being swept away:

Don't avoid the important things

Important things really are important. If you aren't doing the IMPORTANT things on your to-do list you probably

* are not sure HOW to do them
* are worried about FAILING at them
* are BORED by them (because they've been hanging around so long)
* don't really believe they are IMPORTANT

Find out HOW

If you aren't sure HOW to do something make it a priority to find out how to do it! This might mean that the first thing you actually have to do, is to go and talk to someone about what it involves.

Deal with WORRY

If you are worried about FAILING, you need to find a coach who can help you address the issues. If you are a habitual worrier, get coaching about how to deal with worry. If you don't normally worry, but this particular issue is causing you a problem, find a coach with the appropriate expertise who can help you mitigate any risks in the project.

Beat the BOREDOM

If you are BORED with something see if you can find someone else to delegate it to (who might be interested). Lacking that alternative, set yourself a time limit with the promise of a treat on completion.

Priorities

If you don't really believe it's IMPORTANT take it off your list. If you are responding to someone else's important agenda, discuss it with them and try to get it removed.

Strictly speaking, none of the above is time management and most time management programmes will not address these issues (except TIMEPOWER). But it is this kind of approach that actually helps you make the most of the time you have available.

Managing a Virtual Team - Telephone Sales Training

Many of us have to manage people we don't physically work with on a regular basis. Sales managers have long faced the challenge of managing people on the road – for others the challenge may be newer. So what can you do to help yourself

Be a better manager to a virtual team

First of all, clarify what kind of virtual team you are dealing with.

Are your team working on projects together, or do they work individually and are a team simply because they all report to you?

• If the team are actually working together, though sitting apart, you will need to devote a lot of your people management time to making the joint process, telephone sales training as effective as possible. This may mean conference calls, regular get-togethers, and lots of cross team networking.

• If the projects are mostly individual, then the team will need more one to one support from you, and ‘team time' can be focused on exchanging relevant information, building customer service skills and offering customer support.

Relationship Insight

The less time you are able to spend with someone who works for you, the more important it is to have a useful, reliable insight into their working style, their motivational needs and their core values. Understanding yourself and your management development training style will also help you adapt to each individual's needs.

Applying your Insight

Of course, it is no use understanding how to get the most from people if you don't apply your knowledge in practice. Language really matters when dealing with people on the phone. Use the wrong words, and you will not get the reaction you seek.

For example,

If you ask someone with a high activist learning style to ‘spend a couple of hours thinking about possible approaches to a problem' you are not likely to get very much in return.

Ask the same person to ‘identify 3 ways that we could deal with this problem, with a short action plan for each that you would be prepared to implement' and you may get just the quality of thinking you need.

Choose your communication methods carefully

Applying your insight into people to choosing appropriate communication methods will help you make the best use of all the options

• Try to avoid using personal meetings for routine administration and information.
• If the team is meeting altogether, spend time talking to each person beforehand to establish what they want from the group meeting, and to clear any routine items beforehand

• Feedback by e-mail is always risky! Even if you have something positive to say, it can be taken in the wrong way (eg. You write ‘well done – a really good piece of work!' and they think ‘did she think I wasn't capable of doing a good job!').

• If you need to use the phone to give feedback, and the impact of having a virtual team is that usually you will – choose your words very carefully. E.g. telling someone who is very goal

oriented that an action was ‘not helpful' will have minimal impact, since their aim is to deliver goals not be helpful. Suggesting that a different approach would make the achievement of the goal much more likely will have a greater chance of encouraging this person to change behaviour.

• Remember that when you can't soften what you say through body language, criticism will sound much harsher than you perhaps mean.

• If the person receiving feedback is completely on their own – perhaps working from home or on the road, you need to be especially careful not to leave the individual feeling massively de-motivated. Again, a good understanding of their personal motivations and values will guide you on a suitable approach.

TIME for preparation as well as meeting

• When using the phone for meetings, allow a lot of time to prepare carefully.

• If you want people to contribute to a phone meeting, discuss beforehand how you would like them to contribute and when.

• Plan the meeting in key sections so that you can change the pace and vary the style. You might want to include a round the group update session, some brainstorming, an overview of a specific project or issue, a short skills piece and clear next actions.

3 Skills of a Confident Senior Manager

To rise to the top of your organisation whether you are in HR, sales, marketing or operations you will need to be confident when talking to the board. Where does that confidence come from?

The 3 critical components of confident Senior Managers

1. Functional expertise

You may have a broad general experience, but you should expect to be highly competent in the function that you are leading. Competence means knowing your limits, knowing what you do and don't know and knowing where to find the specialist expertise you need to support you.

2. Financial Acumen

Every senior manager needs to be able to make sense of both the company internal management accounts and the published financial accounts. You need to know where your activity shows up in the accounts and what you can do that will influence the numbers. Financial acumen is as critical for public sector managers as it is for private sector. Indeed, for public sector where income may be fixed, understanding how you influence the outgoing numbers is even more important, no matter what your specialist expertise.

3. Business or Organisational Knowledge

You need to know your business or organisation very well, and how it relates to others in the same market or sector. All businesses are not the same, and understanding what it is that your business does to make money is critical. If you are in the public sector the same rules apply – Hospital A is not like Hospital B, and no amount of government intervention will give you the same catchment with the same workforce in the same environment.

One is not enough

You may well have been promoted or recruited to a senior role on the basis of just one of these components. The most common basis for appointment is functional expertise. Ironically in senior management this may be the least use on a daily basis. To be successful, and help your organisation succeed you need all three. So what can you do?

1. Functional expertise

* Keep up to date
* If you have moved into a new field, find the experts inside and outside quickly, get a crash course from them through conversations and recommended reading
* A high level conference or seminar will give you the main drivers
* ‘Introduction to training courses may not help – they are often very tactical and aimed at junior employees

2. Financial Acumen

* Aim for understanding not detailed execution
* Ask the Finance Director or senior financial controller to take you through the company and management accounts in detail
* Accountants measure intangible assets (the ones you can't touch) all the time – ask how to measure any intangible benefits you think your team brings
* Ask yourself how much financial value your team is contributing – ask the finance team how it could be measured
* Build a picture for yourself of how your organisation uses its money – reflect on how it could better use its money to meet its goals
* Introduction to Finance courses may be very useful

3. Organisational Knowledge

* If you have been brought in from outside, understanding what makes the organisation tick should be very high on your list
* Meet with your peer group managers on an individual and group basis often - don't let this get pushed out by your functional role
* Identify the informal influencers as quickly as you can and get to know them
* Think of the key things you need to know to be effective, and formulate your questions before you meet people
* If you are in a new sector, senior level seminars and conferences could give you a quick overview of the key sector drivers
* If you are an internal promotion, make sure you don't lose touch with the ‘grass roots' – you still have to get things done!

Can you value leadership training?

A major debate has been sparked by severe criticism in Personnel Today of the BBC's Leadership Training Programme. An external consultant has declared there is no measurable Return on Investment in training programme, and as such it is a waste of public funds. So …..

Can You Value Leadership Training?

In simple terms, as soon as you have agreed a budget for any training programme design, you have placed what you expect will be the minimum value of the programme to your organisation.

You have clearly made some value judgements, so a great place to start would be to examine those judgements in more detail. Ask yourself the following…

How did you select this programme over other programmes on offer?

What value did you place in relative terms between the style and content of this programme and others?

Did you define the content before choosing a programme?

How was the content defined – who declared a need or objective?

Did you define outcomes and then seek a provider to design content?

Who defined the outcomes, and how?

How did you select a provider – how has this provider won your confidence?

How have you decided who will take part in the programme?

Are participants under-performers, or high flyers being groomed for succession?

Is the programme part of planned career development, or intended to raise morale in the short term?

Are you seeking a powerful way to retain staff, or needing to raise the skills of an entire team to take on a new challenge?

As you start to answer these questions, you will be examining what it is that is being valued. It can be a challenging process. If your answers are along the lines of ‘because that's the way it's always been done' or simply ‘don't know' then it may well be that some training programmes have little or no value.

If you can start to get useful answers to these questions, you have the basis for turning the broad value decisions into financial values. Imperfectly maybe, but in a sufficiently practical way to add value to your decision making, and justification for training programmes.

Managing Your Boss

Your boss often has more impact on your life than your colleagues, your team or even your family. It's a cliché that people join a company - but leave a manager. If you have a good working relationship with your manager you will know how that can help make even a tough job enjoyable. If you and your boss don't get on so well – here are some tips for…

4 If your boss ‘dumps' on you

You and your boss may have a communication problem, or you may have a boss that does not know how to delegate effectively. A substantial proportion of senior managers in the UK have had little or no management development training! Ask your boss for time to set SMART goals for tasks or projects that have been ‘dumped' on you. This will help both of you understand the implications of what is expected of you.

5 If your boss is always interfering

This boss asks you to do something, and then won't leave you alone to get on with it. It can be very hard for managers to ‘let something go' that they are used to doing themselves. The best way to prevent this is once again to set some specific SMART goals relating to your work and agreeing report back times. It's then easier for you to gently push back on any interference by saying that everything is on schedule and you will report as agreed.

It is critical of course that you let this boss know if you need help in anyway. If you don't deliver on something, you will find your boss interfering even more in future.

6 You just don't get on

If you really don't get on, you both need to find a way to develop an acceptable working relationship. This will reduce stress for the two of you. One way of minimizing conflict is to accept that you have different working styles and then to develop an agreed routine. It may be helpful to use a facilitator to help to do this. Remember that bosses can be very touchy about such a process, seeing it as an implied criticism. Find an assertiveness programme or coach to help you get started.