Sue's views

What is CPD?

Anyone who belongs to a professional services institute is required to maintain their professional and personal development under the terms of that institute’s Continuing Professional Development scheme (CPD).

How does this work?

In overview, they are all founded on the same principles ie

• Plan: 
  • Assess the personal development you think you will need to maintain yourself, in your role, over the coming months / year
  • Agree this with your line manager
  • Decide how you will meet these development needs
• Activity:
  • Make the necessary arrangements
  • Complete the activity (eg secondment, reading, project, training course)
• Reflect:
  • Review the activity and the actions you committed to
  • Review the actions and progress with your line manager
  • Conclude on the effectiveness of the activity to meet the need you identified

At this stage, you now have a record of your CPD activity/ies.

So, what’s the confusion?

For many people required to track their CPD, they have a number of issues to deal with: 

• Is there a minimum / recommended number of points or hours? For many institutes, this is no longer a requirement to do a set amount of hours. So, check out the website for your CPD scheme. Examples:
  • ICAEW – no minimum
  • Legal Society – 16 hours p/a
• Does the training have to be with an approved supplier? For most institutes, there is no requirement for the supplier to be approved / registered. For some, there is a percentage which must be approved / regulated. Examples:
  • ICAEW – no requirement
  • Legal Society – 25% must be with an approved supplier; the remaining 75% can be delivered in a variety of ways 
• What if I change my plans during the year? That’s what a plan is for. Your role, the department, the business could all change drastically in a year, or a few months. If you need to adapt, then you do so. If some plans are no longer relevant, then you drop them and you take up other development to fit the new plans.

What does this have to do with a team event?

The fundamental requirement of development is that it should be relevant to your role in the business you work in. Whether you are an accountant at a marketing company or a marketing manager at a firm of accountants, your CPD is about your role in that context. A team event would be an event for a team (or department or unit or whole business) dealing with the current issues for that team and how the performance can be maintained or improved. It might be collective development, but it is about developing skills, knowledge or processes to maintain or improve the business. So, a team event, focused on the business is everything to do with CPD and best practice for the business.

Why now?

Many institutes require their members to sign off their annual CPD declaration between October and December each year, so there’s some frantic activity going on to ensure that everyone complies – on time. If the business as a whole is part of a professional organisation, then it will often have requirements to prove that everyone is keeping themselves up to date, so the business leaders have an added incentive to monitor this. As we reach the Autumn and then the end of the calendar year, many staff are wondering whether or not there will be any kind of Christmas / end of year “social”. We know that many businesses curtailed such expenditure over the last 2-3 years and have every intention of maintaining a low spend this year.

What might a team event look like?

• business briefing – what is going on in your business and the local market
• importance of the individuals and the team individual and team styles, potentially using a psychometric profile
• management exercise – team activity including feedback and discussion
• putting ideas into action – getting individuals and the team to decide what to do
• fun and socialising – as much or as little as you want

What now?

If you would like to discuss the options for your team and your business, contact Sue Cohen by phone or email, as you prefer:

E: sue@suecohen.co.uk

M: 07971 400653

T: 020 8953 6477

Much has been written about managing change, from the Kubler-Ross grief curve of the 1950s through to miriads of papers, books and training programmes.

For me, the key for many people is the emotional reactions, most of which Kubler-Ross discussed and are predictable, even though we all go through them at a different pace and with varying depths. The management challenge is how to anticipate, and therefore manage, this when running a department or a business.

In this video, I offer some thoughts on the overall process of managing change with some key pointers. As ever, if you would like to discuss this in more detail, then please contact me and I also welcome your thoughts, comments and challenges.

Sue – sue@suecohen.co.uk, 020 8953 6477 / 07971 400653

For those of you who’ve been with me since the start, I’m sort of returning to my first theme – Pay it forward.  In a nutshell, doing something for someone else just because …. you can …. it’s “nice” …. it will enable them to do something they otherwise could not have done …. it will make them feel better …. it will make YOU feel better.

Giving feedback sometimes falls into this category – you need to want to help the other person, to give them valuable feedback. Whether it’s about something they are doing well which will be great for them to continue doing or something you think they need to change. If you don’t value the relationship you have with them, then you are unlikely to invest your time and energy in helping them.

If you work with the same people on an ongoing basis, you will need to do this and we can debate how often, how useful, what format etc. My context for this particular set of musings though, is what about the people you don’t work with regularly? Maybe you work with some associates or consultants occasionally; maybe they are part of a networking group or business club you go to and with whom you have not done, nor likely to do, business; maybe they are suppliers or customers.

Which of these people can you give this gift to? As I was reminded last week, “catch someone doing something well” and tell them – great gift. As I was reminded today, “give honest feedback to someone to help them identify what they need to do differently” when you haven’t been asked, when you value the relationship and help them develop – a greater gift.

So, my thanks for today’s reminder and lesson – you know who you are and my positive feedback goes to … well, it’s a gift for them and I promise to deliver it. If you want to use this medium to heap praise on someone publicly, please feel free to do so. If you would like to explore ways of improving the feedback skills within your organisation, then I’d be glad to help you.

Contact Sue on LinkedIn, Twitter and at http://www.suecohen.co.uk/
Contact sue@suecohen.co.uk

When discussing customer service, the conversation is likely to turn to “managing customer expectations”. After all, how can you deliver excellent service, if you don’t know what the customer expects?

In service industries, where there is a relationship between those purchasing and selling the service, it should be possible to discuss the expectations. I say, it should, but we all know that many don’t.

In product industries, this is harder, so the suppliers have to make some assumptions and work from there. In my experience, many get it wrong. All is not lost though ….

Thursday last week, I discovered a large scratch on my windscreen and duly phoned the insurance company. I won’t bore you with the lengthy conversation and inane questions they asked me, and after a few long minutes, I was transferred to the Autoglass service desk. On discussion and review of my diary, it became clear that I was going to struggle to get them to my door / front path when I would be around. No problem, “we do evenings – how about Monday?” And so it was booked – 2 hour window for arrival time and up to 2 hours to fit.

On Monday afternoon, I received a message from the fitter, with his name and mobile number, to confirm the booking and appointment time. I called back and said that the time wasn’t quite what I’d expected and I might not be home in time – no problem, he shuffled the other appointment and got to me within 15 minutes of the advertised time.

The repair took about half an hour and I was advised to leave the car for another hour – the car was ready over 2 hours earlier than I had expected. My expectations – met and exceeded without specifically setting these up beforehand – by setting up a longer and later time than they needed, delivering in less time and calling in advance with a direct contact and fitter’s name. 

Why are so many delivery companies unable to do this? The office stall tell you the delivery or warehouse team sort out the delivery order and timings – why can’t they call in the morning with a 2 hour time slot or when they are 2 calls away? What does your business do to identify, meet and exceed customer expectations? What else could you do? Do your staff have the skills to ask the right questions, deliver the messages assertively and the information and authority to make the decisions you need them to make?

Contact Sue if you’d like to discuss building skills to assess, manage and exceed customer expectations.

Find Sue on LinkedIn, Twitter and at http://www.suecohen.co.uk/
Contact sue@suecohen.co.uk

I have met numerous experts in the last few months, not least the many who can help business people get more about of their marketing budgets. I’ve talked a little about social media and my belief that it’s partly that title which puts some business people off.

There are many tools out there, described as “free” and “easy to set up and use”. Well, yes, many of them are free and they are easy to set up and, looking at the menu options, they would appear easy to use.

Why, then, are there so many people offering training courses on these tools?

2 reasons strike me – define “easy” and fear. In most cases, the tool seems easy to use, when you know how. The more menu options there are to make it easier for the user, the more you have to know. If there are fewer menu options, you may have to work through them and all the options within them.

Twitter has few options – and then many people use other tools to maintain their tweets as the core tool doesn’t do as much as they want it to. LinkedIn has vast menus and it takes quite a while to find your way round and teach yourself.

And fear? Well, if you do it wrong it’s out “there”, isn’t it? Millions of people can see you make a mistake. Yes and no. How many people have millions of followers? There are odd scare stories when people have really made a fool out of something and it’s been posted and re-posted endlessly. For most of us, this is so unlikely to happen – amongst our typos and spelling mistakes; misquotes; attaching an out of focus picture; a blog article that’s a bit long – that’s the worst that’s likely to happen.

My main gripe, though, is not that the IT trainers will capitalise on their own ability to get to grips with the software quickly, combined with others’ fears, it’s that they concentrate on the software and what it can do. Where’s the strategy? Where’s the planning? It’s true that understanding more about what some of the tools and sites can do, will help you to think more about how to use them well for you and your business. 

But, if you’re not sure where to start, to me “what am I trying to achieve?” is more important than “how do I use the tool?” I’m no expert – but I’ve met quite a few who claim to be and I’ve formed my own opinions about them and I’d be happy to discuss my experiences with anyone and pass on details.

Contact Sue if you’d like to discuss use of social media and online networking tools and the impact on the people and their skills.

Find Sue on LinkedIn and at http://www.suecohen.co.uk/
Contact sue@suecohen.co.uk

It strikes me that one of the issues with online networking is that it is included as part of “social media”, not helped when LinkedIn et al are described as “Facebook for business”. Although I have dabbled with Ecademy, Naymz and a couple of other sites, I use LinkedIn to a far greater extent, so any mention of features and activities is based on that experience.

To my way of thinking, LinkedIn is a business networking site – part of business media. There are discussion groups which, although they could be around any common grouping, are largely to do with business, or work, in one form or another. The questions and answers section is similarly filled with business topics and tips. Ultimately, the prime motivator to connect or join, is the business connection, with colleagues, former colleagues, suppliers, customers and all those who might fit those categories, which may well include friends.

The profile is divided into areas to describe your experience and education or qualifications and the summaries are generally about business. If you read through the more comprehensive profiles, you will see they mirror what many people put on their corporate websites or cvs. A LinkedIn profile can contain far more detail than a cv and you can include personal recommendations – more about that in another edition.

On the other hand, Facebook is a social networking site – most people use it to find and keep in contact with friends. Sometimes the relationships may have originated in business and may continue to do so, but the prime motivator is the friendship. Discussions are “wall to wall” around one person’s activity and publicity abounds about advertising parties and social activities to everyone, instead of just your friends. I won’t deny there is a growing use of fan pages and groups for business use although my impression is that this is largely within the B2C market, rather than B2B at the moment and isn’t the most widely-used parts of the site.

You may ask “What difference does it make what it’s called?” I believe that one of the reasons many people are reticent to use LinkedIn, either to sign up in the first place or “do much” once they’ve been persuaded to set up a profile, is because they are introduced to social media not business media and that’s where their perceptions and assumptions start. Lots of business people struggle to see the value of face to face networking (have a look at March’s posts if this is a concern of yours) and perceive an organised event as a “jolly” so how are they going to relate to business through something called social media.

What about connecting with a stranger? It is just not the way “we do things”. I would have thought it’s easier to connect with a stranger on line through a shared group or discussion, than to walk into a room of people you don’t know and strike up conversation with said stranger. These groups are usually by invitation or acceptance, so there’s a common reason why you are both within that group which gives the majority of people a reason to connect or, as someone else put it “reach out to others”. It is also easy to leave a group and break a connection, if you really want to and I’m not going to go into detail about how to connect, join a group, answer a question or anything else here – there’s stacks out there already.

So, if you are reading this with a “Yes, but” going through your head or “Well, that’s okay for you to say, you’re good with I.T.” have another think and do some research. I was not an avid early adopter; I’ve only been using LinkedIn to any great extent since the middle of 2009 and Facebook I’m still working on. Today, I have almost 500 connections on LinkedIn, and am building ties with people using web and face-to-face in a way I hadn’t thought possible. I’ve helped, and been helped, by people from thousands of miles away as well as a few hundred miles and within walking distance.

Oh yes – I am currently doing some work for a client through a former colleague I hadn’t seen for five years. We found each other on LinkedIn!

Have a go – what have you got to lose?

Contact Sue if you’d like to discuss your face-to-face and online networking skills, as part of delivering your marketing strategy.
Find Sue on LinkedIn and at http://www.suecohen.co.uk/
Contact sue@suecohen.co.uk

Just by way of a change (having just recorded this) me, instead of just my words …

Contact Sue if you’d like to discuss learning and development in your organisation.
Find Sue on LinkedIn and at http://www.suecohen.co.uk/
Contact sue@suecohen.co.uk

A different type of blog this time …

Some of you will know that I have been working as a freelance consultant for just under a year. It was the end of March 2009 when I parted company with my former employer.

This time a year ago, I was finalising details for a social outing in London with a select group of former colleagues and contacts whilst finalising my plans for my business.

At that stage, near the end of April, I had purchased a new laptop computer and mobile phone, started creating a website and set the wheels in motion for a business bank account, amongst other things. Those who know me weren’t too surprised that:

• I had decide “go freelance”
• it didn’t take me long to make that decision
• the organisation / administration was in hand

I remain an organised person who likes to get things done.

What has surprised me in that year?

That, of course, is a different question. Whilst I knew that it can take many business managers and owners a long time to decide on a course of action, I remain surprised by the length of time it can take some organisations. I am also pleasantly surprised when the decisions are made quickly. However, I get frustrated by the people who can’t manage a polite, assertive “No thanks”.

I have often helped people develop their personal skills, including a not insignificant amount of “Working the room” and other skills related to networking. I was prepared to do this, in buckets, and generally enjoy it. What I have found a positive surprise has been the amount of supportiveness there is in many business networking groups.

In addition, I’ve been surprised (in both positive and negative ways) by those I’ve stayed in touch with and those I haven’t. Some former colleagues have been great at making sure we stay in touch and meeting up occasionally – those who had left before me and those who are still there. Some of the external consultants I have bought services from have also become a firm feature in my contacts list with calls and emails on a fairly regular basis. Some of us continue to discuss opportunities to work together, as well as refer work to each other.

Through the power of networking, not least LinkedIn, I have found a number of former colleagues, many of whom have become great contacts again, as well as leads into specific work.

I have also become better at reflecting and I’ve learnt lots. What have you discovered as a micro-business? Which collaborations and alliances have surprised you? What positive advice can you give to others?

Contact Sue if you’d like to discuss ways of building your networking and collaboration skills and, if you are in the Hertforshire area, I’d be pleased to invite you to one of the groups I attend.
Find Sue on LinkedIn and at http://www.suecohen.co.uk/
Contact sue@suecohen.co.uk

Some areas of “helping out” tend to be part of large organisations, but smaller ones can also do something for their staff and the community. 

Swap shop

A “swap shop” for your staff could be a simple book and magazine swap, clothes swaps or toy swaps. Each new user / borrower, pays a small amount to the “seller” or puts money into a charity box, or both. At the end of the month, or quarter, the money in the box is given to a local charity.

Supporting the community

Times are tough for many people, including voluntary organisations and charity shops. Anything which can’t be swapped or sold between the staff could be given to the local charity shop or staff might volunteer to help in the shop. 

Of, a group could get together and help tidy up a communal garden or children’s play area.

Or, giving in a different way – maybe some of the staff could be encouraged to become blood donors – this usually takes about an hour, every 4 months.

Rocket science? Definitely not
Common sense? Yes, probably
Common practice? Unfortunately not

Contact Sue if you’d like to discuss ways of motivating your staff and developing their team skills.
Find Sue on LinkedIn and at http://www.suecohen.co.uk/
Contact sue@suecohen.co.uk

As well as thinking about the communication, what can you do to help people feel better and take care of themselves with food and drink?

Firstly – drink more

I’m not talking about the alcoholic kind, but the everyday coffees, teas and cold drinks. Most offices have a kitchen area or coffee machines stocked with “okay” coffee, milk, sugar and sweeteners, along with mugs for staff and “nice” cups for the visitors. For years, this has been seen as sufficient. But not any longer and, for all sorts of reasons, people want other drinks – decaffeinated coffee, herbal and fruit teas, chilled water or juice and will bring their own favourites with them.

So, how about a visit to your local supermarket or corner store and stock up on fruit teas, herbal teas and decaff drinks? If you have a machine which only dipenses “standard” coffee, it probably has a button for hot water and, if not, a kettle will suffice.

For cold drinks, ignore bottled water – it takes about 2,000 times as much energy to produce, package and transport your litre of bottled water than it does to provide the same amount of tap water. And, the water in the UK is certainly safe and clean to drink! Maybe you could invest in a filter tap in the kitchen, or simply a filter jug plus a couple of water jugs to fit in the fridge. Take your turn to refill the jug regularly and you have a supply of chilled water for all, throughout the day.

Secondly, eat well

I’m not suggesting you provide food for all your staff throughout the day, but how about a small supply of fresh fruit. Support your local greengrocer with a regular order of fresh fruit and encourage everyone to take some. Depending on the number of people in the office, a small supply each day or once a week may suffice. A bowl of fresh fruit, every few days, depending on nnumbers – if it’s there, most people will eat it and say it’s better for them than biscuits. Might even add some colour to the office and provide a good contact with a local supplier.

Maybe that supplier will be able to deliver to your office and take staff orders – saving them some time!

Again, not a high cost item, but something which people really appreciate.

Rocket science? Definitely not
Common sense? Yes, probably
Common practice? Unfortunately not

Contact Sue if you’d like to discuss ways of motivating your staff and developing their team skills.
Find Sue on LinkedIn and at http://www.suecohen.co.uk/
Contact sue@suecohen.co.uk