Research found Managers destroying relationships

Beverly Sherratt writes about her passion for improving organisations and shares some of her findings from a research project exploring the impact of organisation culture on well-being and mental health.

In May 2012 I left a lead Human Resources role disillusioned with the career I'd chosen in 1991. At that point I set up an art company that did really well, but I missed business. My passion is People and Organisation development. In 2010 I'd secured £25,000 to undertake a research project into the impact of organisation culture on well-being and mental health. The results were fascinating, and this prompted my desire to go back to my roots.

So I set up Profectus 4 People Limited to follow my passion - People and Organisation development.

I'd spent over 20 years in HR working for a range of organisations Nationally and Regionally, had my HR masters and CIPD but I wanted the credibility to operate as a consultant and felt I needed to open myself to some new learning.

In March 2013 I discovered the Coaching Academy through a two day freebie in Leeds. The energy was fantastic and I knew I wanted to reinvent myself and my business by studying with the Academy. So I signed up! I started with the Diploma in Personal Coaching and NLP Practitioner programmes.

My first accelerator day was DISC. I'd used a range of psychometrics in my HR work. I'd used Myers Briggs (MBTI) extensively in team development and a range of others in recruitment. The accelerator day I discovered DISC I knew I'd found something special. I decided I wanted to know more. I researched DISC and read Bev James Book - Do It or Ditch it! After research I decided that DISC would form a major part of my work. In October 2013 with another eight coaches I joined Bev James and Dave Pill to train to be a Licensed Trainer in DISC.

Since then I've not looked back!

Lots of coaches use DISC in their 1:1 work, and whilst I love my 1:1 work and NLP, I have a passion for improving organisations, maximising performance and matching people to organisation culture to minimise stress. My research in 2010/11 led me to understand the importance of communication in organisations. The research project findings were predominantly communication related. We found managers destroying relationships with staff by what I've come to call embrace and whack syndrome. That is, those who struggle with difficult conversations and when pushed to address performance or absence go from being overly supportive to overly critical. This leaves the staff member in utter confusion, distressed and relationships break down, often leading to long term absences, compromise agreements, or litigation - all very costly.

We also found perceptions of "cloak and dagger" relationships, where managers were unclear with staff as to what issues are for information, communication or consultation. This leads to insecurity, where staff perceive conversations to be happening but received no outcomes. Again this leads to stress and impacts negatively on relationships.

This was a long and in depth project and to give all of the findings would be an article in itself, but the findings inspired me to seek to develop staff, managers and organisations to communicate effectively with impact and influence to ultimately create stressless organisations that perform and are successful.

I use DISC in 1:1 work, I deliver open courses, but the majority of my work takes place in organisations, developing competencies and behaviours, delivering staff development and leadership programmes all underpinned by DISC. Every organisation I go in has an occupational preference, for example, I found S to be in almost all Primary School teacher profiles, I to be in Telesales, C in Health & Safety professionals, and so on. We've then worked with those organisations to be their strategic partner working towards changing culture, developing recruitment strategies for organisations to use DISC in appointments to Key posts.

My Profectus 4 Leaders™ and Profectus 4 Managers™ programme Stage 1 uses DISC to build understanding of self and others in order to successfully lead, inspire, influence and manage. The programme is proving successful in organisations and we are looking to take this into open leadership programmes in order to develop the programme further through peer learning and mentoring.

We value a true understanding of how we operate ourselves and the impact of people and their behaviour on us. Managers who operate with clarity, understanding of their staff and colleagues I've found through my research many are much more confident and successful, alleviating so much pressure and stress.

That's just a little about how DISC, NLP and the Academy have changed my business and me in just a year.