Increasing Your Visibility: Raising Your Profile at Work – Mind Tools

A promotion opportunity recently came up in Patrick’s department. The job matched his skills perfectly, so he was shocked when he didn’t get an interview, especially when he learned that the successful candidate was less experienced than him.

When Patrick asked his boss why he hadn’t been considered for the role, she said the selection panel didn’t know anything about him, so she couldn’t convince them that he was the right person for the job.

Conversely, the successful applicant was well known to the panel – she had built strong connections with influential people and had represented the department at company-wide gatherings. As a result, they knew what she could do.

Unfortunately, this is a common scenario. People who get noticed get the best assignments, while those who keep their heads down miss out, despite their hard work.

So how can you increase your visibility at work, without bragging or stealing the spotlight from your colleagues? We’ll look at some useful strategies in this article.

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/increasing-visibility.htm?utm_source=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=16Dec14#np

Performance Of The Foundation Trust Sector: Year Ended 31 March 2015 – Monitor

This report summarises the performance of the NHS foundation trust sector for the final quarter of the year ending 31 March 2015. It found that foundation trusts treated 10.7 million emergency inpatients between April 2014 and March 2015, a 574,000 increase on the previous year. However, this increase in demand for care, combined with an over-reliance on expensive agency staff and the need to make cost savings, is putting trusts under sustained and exceptional pressure. The sector ended 2014/15 in deficit (-£349 million) for the first time, a sign of the increased pressures upon services.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/429614/Q4_2014-15_Sector_Performance_for_Board_-_Updated_Final.pdf

Action Programs: Becoming Exceptionally Well Organized – MindTools

Action Programs are “industrial strength” versions of To-Do Lists, which incorporate short-, medium- and long-term goals. They help you to plan your time, without forgotten commitments coming in to blow your schedule apart. And, because they encourage you to think about your priorities properly, you can focus on the things that matter, and avoid frittering your time away on low value activities.

Actions Programs also help you get into the habit of delegating jobs. All of this lets you save time – and get away on time – whilst also increasing your effectiveness and productivity. As such, they help you bring intelligent prioritization and control back to your life, at times where you would otherwise feel overwhelmed by work.

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_83.htm

An Organization-Wide Approach to Good Decision Making – Harvard Business Review

Behavioral economists and psychologists have uncovered scores of biases that undermine good decision-making. And, along with management experts, they have provided helpful tips that decision-makers can use to try to correct for those biases. But a comprehensive framework for achieving quality decision-making throughout an organization is still rare — almost three-quarters of companies have no formal corporate-wide approach to making major, complex decisions.

Without a proven, organization-wide approach, there may be, at best, isolated pockets of high-quality decision-making where individual leaders have elected to take a rigorous, transparent approach. Otherwise, the organization is at the mercy of the biggest bias of all: the perception that it is good at making decisions.

https://hbr.org/2015/05/an-organization-wide-approach-to-good-decision-making

Why Special Ops Stopped Relying So Much on Top-Down Leadership – Harvard Business Review

When Fredrick Winslow Taylor designed the world’s first modern assembly line and forever changed industry, persuasion was the last thing on his mind. Taylor believed assembly line workers simply needed clear direction on how to execute prescribed tasks. His belief, which manifested in both physical design and organizational structures during the decades that followed, was that the human factor should be removed from the production equation to the greatest extent possible. Stopwatch and measuring tape in hand, Taylor designed and advocated for systems that maximized efficiency and predictability through vertical integration and top-down control. And with that, the 20thcentury’s great quest for bureaucratic efficiency began.

https://hbr.org/2015/05/why-special-ops-stopped-relying-so-much-on-top-down-leadership

Put your money where your mouth is: the symbols of time, money and resources – An Obsession With Transformation

Blog post from Peter Fuda that identifies that aligning your time, money and resources to your articulated goals will accelerate you towards them because it provides evidence of your integrity; people quickly realise that you say what you mean, and mean what you say.

http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/psa-skin-prep-solutions-may15.pdf

Understand the 4 Components of Influence – Harvard Business Review

We’ve all encountered people who say less but what they say matters more; people who know how to use silence to dominate an exchange.  So having influence means more than just doing all the talking; it’s about taking charge and understanding the roles that positional power, emotion, expertise, and nonverbal signals play. These four aspects of influence are essential to master if you want to succeed as a leader.

  1. Positional Power
  2. Emotion
  3. Expertise
  4. Human Interaction

https://hbr.org/2015/05/understand-the-4-components-of-influence

Focus on Winning Either Hearts or Minds – Harvard Business Review

The art of persuading by winning hearts is about connecting people emotionally to your idea or position. In any persuasive dialog, you need to connect with others to some degree. However, this approach is highly effective in certain circumstances such as:

  • Introducing a new idea and trying to pique interest.
  • Gaining support for a decision that’s already been made.
  • Raising the bar on performance or commitment.
  • Leading a team that is struggling with discord or conflict.
  • Aligning with creative colleagues, like those in design or marketing.

https://hbr.org/2015/05/focus-on-winning-either-hearts-or-minds

How to Earn Respect as a Leader – Harvard Business Review

How would you be perceived in your organization’s meritocracy? Ask yourself if you command respect because people have to respect you or, rather, because you’ve truly earned respect. Many people aspire to titles because that forces others to respect them. But, to me, this is the lowest form of respect, especially if the person you’re receiving respect from is more junior than you or works at a lower rung in the bureaucracy. Respect has to be earned. It’s not about a title.

https://hbr.org/2015/05/how-to-earn-respect-as-a-leader