Creative and effective thinking are essential in times of crisis, and creativity and speed are two of the characteristics likely to be stifled through lack of confidence. It can also hamper professional effectiveness, career progression and personal well-being.
Those who lack confidence play it safe. They avoid new challenges and take longer over interpersonal tasks than their more confident counterparts. But their actions can leave the organisation and the individual poorer as a result. Businesses need their senior managers to make decisions based on their knowledge in as fast and effective a way as possible.
Take Will, a junior partner in a firm of accountants. His lack of confidence meant that he avoided meeting clients and was not bringing in new business. His organisation was considering asking him to leave.
Will was more than competent in his work but was seen as “prickly”. He needed help. The solution was six 90-minute confidence-coaching sessions spread over a six-month period. The coaching improved his confidence and his situation changed dramatically. He felt more in control and his employers were delighted with the changes they witnessed in him.
The coaching cost £7,500 but with Will’s increased productivity and the money saved on finding a replacement, the programme proved cost-effective. Confidence-enhancing coaching for graduate-level entrants (the potential leaders of tomorrow) is seen by some employers as a way to gain the maximum in future decision-making and effective communication.
Graduate entrants often sail through assessment centres but once in the workplace find their ability to communicate, form effective relationships and deal with the realities of corporate life more of a challenge.
Best behaviour
Lack of confidence can express itself in a variety of ways. For example, senior managers who have “behavioural issues” may react to situations where they feel insecure or threatened by either taking longer to make a decision or by becoming irritable or aggressive.
Confident managers do not mind sharing their challenges and will seek information and support from colleagues. Those without confidence cannot “share” because it demonstrates a (perceived) lack of ability. This may manifest itself through inappropriate and ineffective behaviours.
There is some evidence to suggest that aspects of confidence are genetic (Bouchard). However, there is an increasing body of research based on the work of Pavlov’s classical conditioning, Skinner’s operant conditioning and Seligman’s original “learned helplessness” research, all of which suggest that learnt or conditioned behaviour is more likely to be the root cause.
One study undertaken by Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California estimated that even taking the most pessimistic view, 40 per cent of the ability to change is in the hands of the individual. Psychology has demonstrated that anyone can learn the emotional and practical skills required to become more confident.
Confidence coaching programmes based on cognitive behavioural approaches include strategies from positive psychology, emotional intelligence and mindfulness-based cognitive coaching, all of which originate from psychology. The four areas covered in this form of coaching are confident manner, thoughts, feelings and actions.
Confident manner
Understanding aspects such as body language, how to use and read it and the social skills associated with forming effective relationships are key at this stage. Successful individuals use the same skills they would use in networking to develop an internal personal “brand” and foster effective work relationships.
Those lacking confidence find conversations anxiety provoking. Yet many successful individuals actually say little about themselves but are good listeners, spending time focusing on the other person.
Two strategies that can be taught at this stage of a confidence-coaching programme are the use of open questions and the concept of the OPEN Formula.
Open questions
By teaching the use of open questions (what? where? how? why? and when?), individuals can elicit information from others. This, coupled with active listening skills, provides a sound foundation for conversations.
Role playing the types of situations the individual faces is a good way of embedding learning and practising the use of such questions.
The OPEN formula
Individuals can use topic areas related to the OPEN formula to focus their conversations.OPEN stands for:
O = occupation (for example, past, current and possible future employment, job type)
P = personal (for example, the client may have mentioned just coming back from holiday)
E = environment (for example, where the individual lives and/or works)
N = non-work activities (for example, hobbies, holidays, activities)
By combining open questions with the OPEN formula the individual is guided to create an impact. The fear of what to say is removed, and the focus is on the structure of what to say and how to say it.
Confident thoughts
This area of confidence coaching helps people understand that it is the thoughts we hold about others, the world and ourselves that create a lack of confidence. The most common cognitive errors are identified, and the coaching provides counters to these based on the needs of the individual.
For example, in Will’s case, part of his difficulty came down to his “perfectionist” thinking style. This meant that one of the cognitive filters he applied was that of “all or nothing” thinking. Everything was seen as either being right or wrong based on a life rule (the strategy by which we operate in the world) of “if I get something wrong, then people will think I am incompetent”.
What we think drives the way we feel, which in turn drives our actions. Confidence coaching unearths the thinking style of the individual, and employs a bespoke set of techniques and strategies to counter it. It’s probably the most important part of any confidence building programme – and one that takes the greatest skill to implement.
Individuals are encouraged to keep a “worrying record thoughts form” as a way of capturing and countering negative thinking. When dealing with “all or nothing” thinking, a simple strategy such as asking the individual to consider “what is the worst that can happen?” may be all that is required to help them reconsider and develop a more realistic thinking style.
Confident feelings
This part of the programme considers practical strategies aimed at targeting individual feelings linked to the thoughts part of the programme that provides the cognitive framework where the feelings originate.
Strategies include learning how to undertake an emotional “cost/benefit” analysis (the individual is introduced to a way of identifying underlying issues) and keeping a “worry book” (learning new ways of dealing effectively with anxiety- provoking situations).
Additional strategies include learning how to use a responsibility pie (a way to deal with guilt by exposing how unrealistically responsible the client feels), to undertaking a major work-life audit exercise to gain control of day-to-day events.
Confident actions
The final part of a confidence-building programme focuses on the behaviours the individual needs to cultivate. Success breeds success and, therefore, the more effective the behaviour the better the result.
In turn, this reinforces the new behaviour. Strategies include understanding the behavioural model of how change happens, why change takes time and how everyone goes through a set number of stages, although the length of time someone stays in any given stage varies.
Additional strategies include developing a specialised contingency planning model as well as strategies adapted or taken directly from assertiveness training (for example, the three step model) and behaviour modification (for example, micro skills practice of new behaviours).
Many of these strategies can be adapted by managers themselves when coaching their direct reports. Individuals can be encouraged to list their achievements over the past three months. They can then reinforce and/or add to these with the manager’s comments and/or any others credited to them that they may have missed.
Managers can also help individuals recognise that those who lack confidence discount the good work being done. Such individuals are usually unable to recognise their strengths or the value of the work produced. This increases stress for both the individual and the organisation. And stressed employees bring their own problems.
Confidence is an essential requirement of 21st century corporate life. If organisations are to capitalise on the skills and talents of individuals in what has been identified as a shrinking talent pool, then such programmes are essential to ensure that individuals are equipped to deal with the changing corporate environment.
Sir John Whitmore will be speaking on increasing leaders’ confidence to make appropriate decisions at the CIPD’s HRD conference, London, on 21-23 April. For more information visit www.cipd.co.uk/hrd
References
- T J Bouchard, “Genes, environment and personality”, in Science, 264, 5166, pp1700-1701, 1994.
- I P Pavlov, Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex, OUP, London, 1927.
- B F Skinner, Science and Human Behaviour, Macmillan, New York, 1953.
- S F Maier and M E P Seligman, “Learned helplessness: theory and evidence”, in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 105, pp3-46, 1976.
- S Lyubomirsky, K M Sheldon and D Schkade, “Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change,” in Review of General Psychology, 9, pp111-131, 2005.
- G McMahon, Confidence Works- Learn How to be Your Own Life Coach, Sheldon Press, UK, 2001.
- C Peterson and M Seligman, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, New York, OUP, 2004.
- S Clarke and C Cooper, Managing the Risk of Workplace Stress: Health and Safety Hazards, Taylor & Francis, 2003.
Gladeana McMahon is co-director of the Centre for Coaching, vice president of the Association for Coaching, director, professional coaching standards at Cedar Talent Management and UK co-founder of cognitive behavioural coaching. www.gladeanamcmahon.com
Volume 4, Issue 2