First of all, ensure you get some specific examples of where it apparently went wrong, and what a better result would have been in each situation. Keep at it until you are completely clear: too much ‘developmental’, critical or negative feedback is way too vague. Just doing this is a great practice run for your negotiation skills: you will need to listen really, really carefully to what your feedback giver is saying, and use careful questions, respectfully, to get to the bottom of this challenge.

Did you give in too easily? Did you lock horns and take a position that you were (too) determined to defend? Did you miss opportunities to clinch the deal or offer concessions that you didn’t need to? What was the impact of your not-yet-built negotiation skills?

It seems that one of the founding fathers of the Positive Psychology movement, Martin Seligman, may be moderating his happiness agenda. His new book, ‘Flourish’, marks a shift from his earlier ‘Authentic Happiness’. He’s recently been quoted as saying, “What humans want is not just happiness. They want justice; they want meaning”. So is it time to stop and think?

Well done if you’re reading this blog post and want to boost your written communication skills as ‘reading more widely’ is one of my Top Tips! But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First of all, I hope you asked the person who set you this task to give you some clear examples of when your written communication skills were less than fabulous. Also, I hope they were crystal-clear about what you will be doing differently when said skills are all brushed up. If you haven’t done that yet, get the conversation in the diary, so you know what you’re aiming for. Meanwhile, these 7 tips will help:

When we want to influence people, a very powerful technique can be to mirror or match their body language and voice. Now obviously, we’re not talking about mimicking or aping another person’s every twitch, scratch and drumming finger - how would you like that? No: we’re talking about paying careful and respectful attention to them, noticing how they are physiologically, and then subtly, bit by bit matching them. In NLP this is called developing and using ‘sensory acuity’.

Think about it: have you ever observed a couple in a social situation and thought, “Oooh dear, there’s a date that’s not going so well”? Chances are it was the body language and/or voice that you picked up on. So how can we use this natural human tendency to notice others’ body language in order to influence?

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) has much to offer us when it comes to improving our influencing skills. For example, NLP is very big on understanding how we use our five senses:

• Seeing - Visual
• Hearing - Auditory
• Feeling - Kinaesthetic
• Smelling - Olfactory
• Tasting - Gustatory

NLP calls these our Representational systems, and claims we have a sixth one, called Auditory Digital, which is our ‘inner voice’ or ‘self-talk’.

Hmmm… My answer to this one is often another question: so that you can what? One of the Big Issues with influencing that we need to grasp right from the start is that it needs to be done with integrity. If you are out to manipulate others or use dark arts such as emotional blackmail, that isn’t influencing with integrity. But if you have bags of integrity, a positive and mutually beneficial goal in mind, then take these 5 simple tips:

1. Listen! There’s a common misconception that influential people do lots of talking, they have ‘the gift of the gab’, are ‘smooth talkers’. Yet, whilst they may be articulate, the best influencers often listen more than they talk. We have two ears, one mouth and are much more influential when we use them in that ratio. Stop interrupting and really tune into what the other person is saying.
2. Ask questions more than you make statements. If you notice that you often make statements with those you seek to influence, beware. Statements run the risk of seeming to ‘take a position’, and that can open you up to challenge. Taking a position suggests inflexibility - which when you think about it, isn’t influential - how would you feel if someone influenced you inflexibly? So ask questions to get the communication flowing.
3. Ask more open questions. Open questions are so named because they ‘open up’ the respondent, giving them more to say, think about, and disclose. Closed questions can usually only be answered with a “yes” or “no”. So open questions are more influential. “How many?”, “What’s really important about this?”, “When do we need to decide?” are examples of open questions. Personally, I’d counsel caution about ‘why?’ as it can come over as a bit confrontational. Sure, you may need to find out why - so use another question to do so.
4. Find out what ‘win’ is for the person/people you want to influence. There’s a lot written about ‘win:win’, and yet often we neglect the other ‘win’ when we seek to influence. Use your open questions to discover and explore what their ‘win’ is. We can only get a mutually beneficial ‘win’ if we know theirs and they know ours.
5. Be aware of body language. This is a big influencer, and one we are highly skilled in spotting and deciphering, so much so we often forget we’re doing it. And others are doing this with us, so keep your body language relaxed - no pointing.

Ah yes. The ‘raise your profile’ objective. This comes up in quite a few appraisals. Indeed, long long ago and far away, I think it may have figured in one of mine. At the time I thought, “OK, yeah, raise my profile, right”. Then as the days and weeks went by, I realised I had so little idea of what it actually meant that I had zero idea of what to do. All I knew was my profile had been deemed low, and up until that point I’d been completely unaware of it being an issue. So offered below are some thoughts to help you handle the sticky business of profile-raising:

As with all vague goals and objectives, we are doomed to fail unless we get some more specific detail. So the first step is to ask the goal-setter(s) how they will know you’ve succeeded in raising your profile. Keep questioning until you’re getting some tangibles on this. Clue: metrics and verbs are good. Waffle and adjectives such as ‘gravitas’, ‘proactive’, and ‘strategic’ are far less helpful as they’re open to misinterpretation. How will people know you’re being proactive, strategic or have gravitas? What will you be doing, saying - and not doing, saying? And what super-objective will be served by you doing all this? More projects, revenue, opportunities?

Good question. And I can’t help wondering if ‘personal branding’ is a term you’ve heard in an appraisal or read online or in the press recently. There’s a lot of it about at the moment, along with its close relative ‘reputation management’. Can the thinking and frameworks that underpin a successful detergent, car, computer or retailer really translate to an individual living being? Yes.

If you think about your favourite brands, there’s a lot that can be applied on a personal level. Much of what makes a brand successful is how it appeals and delivers on a human level. Look in the literature and you’ll often find ‘brand’ defined as a promise, a contract with the buyer. This isn’t just a slogan or strapline: the best brands manifest their promise in every aspect of what they do. So let’s tackle you as a brand, which means doing a ‘brand audit’.

1. What’s your primary purpose? Or, why are you here? To ‘live love and leave a legacy’, as Charles Handy so elegantly put it? To be a parent, teacher, son, painter, daughter, leader, nephew, great mate, scholar, grandma, pianist? We all have multiple roles and identities. Note down as many as you can think of.
2. Who are you here to serve, support, lead or guide? Your answers to the first question will prompt your responses to this one.
3. How would you describe yourself? Get some adjectives flowing here. Decisive, delicious, dedicated, droll, delectable, divergent - and that’s just some of the ‘d’ words - you get the idea. Make a long list, then see if you pick a top 5.
4. How would others describe you? See question 2 and put yourself in the shoes of others. What words - adjectives again - would they use to describe you?
5. Now look at your lists for questions 3 and 4. Do they match up? If they do, well done: you’ve probably got a fairly consistent personal brand. And if they don’t align? Welcome to the modern world! Many of us wear masks in our different roles; it’s a survival mechanism and sign of our adaptability. Now you can get curious about these differences and see how they show up in your life. Notice when you’re being consistent with who you are - ‘on brand’ - and when you’re not.
6. Identify actions to boost your brand. You might empty your wardrobe into that charity bag. Or overhaul your workspace. You may watch your language online and offline. Or mind your manners. Or smile more and frown less.

I often work with groups or individuals who want or need to set goals.  It may be as part of the annual appraisal, 1:1 conversations about development and progress, or a coaching conversation. Within the work context, I think it’s a bit simpler to set goals, because when it’s done right, there is an organizational goal which the team and individual goals support and serve.  That way everyone’s effort is aligned with where the organization wants to be.  Where it can get a little tougher is when people are setting goals for their own life, their personal development, if only to give them some sense of purpose, an idea where they would like to be heading.  And that’s often when I hear, “Where do I start?”

A very good place to start is to simply address the question: “What do you want?”  Yes really. What DO you want?  OK, some people can get a bit flippant and trot out supercilious answers (“Oh, well, you know, world peace, an end to poverty, a cure for cancer, ha ha”) Pity, as these are laudable things to want, but the response may also suggest a sense of helplessness and lack of purpose.  That which is wanted is much bigger than the individual, and is therefore perceived to be a pipe dream.

Have courage and state what it is you want in your life.  Not shoes and handbags (at least not at this point in the process), but The Big Stuff.  How do you want to live?  Where do you want to live?  Who do you want to spend time with?  To what do you want to make a contribution?

Too often I see goals and objectives where the word ‘should’ is scrawled all over them in not-very-invisible ink.  That’s a pity.  When we get really clear about what we want in our lives, we set a direction that removes all the ‘shoulding’, because we want and choose to make the journey from where we currently are to where we want to be.  When we really want that goal, we are persistent in the face of setbacks, genuinely pleased with every step we take to progress, and powerful beyond measure.

I’m often asked this, particularly by participants on ‘brainstorming sessions’ or ‘off-site-idea-days’.  These sessions can be great for getting people together and remembering why they got into the business/team/project in the first place.  The best ones end up with tangible ideas and clear actions to take them forward.  Sometimes, people can feel a little underwhelmed at their ability to come up with ideas and be creative, and that’s when I get asked the question.  First of all, I think they’re missing a point.

It’s worth considering this: when, where and with whom have you come up with your best ideas?  For some, it’s in the shower (bathrooms seem to figure large); others get their inspiration just as they go to sleep or wake up; often it’s when we’re doing something ‘else’, i.e. not intent on coming up with ideas.  Some people get their best ideas alone, others when they’re collaborating.  So get clear about how you are at your most creative.  Then do more of that.  Yes, this is rather different from packing yourself/your team off to a nice venue and having brainstorm sessions.  But getting clear on when, where and with whom we have our best ideas can help us prepare for such sessions, and get the most out of them when we’re there.