Working with impact
We help employees at all levels of the organisation to improve their professional impact in sustainable and evidence-based ways.
This covers topics like effective goal-setting, choosing values-aligned behaviour, engaging in ongoing reflection and cultivating flexible approaches when working with colleagues.
What does professional effectiveness mean?
We frame professional effectiveness as the set of skills, attitudes and personal qualities that allow employees to get the most out of themselves and leverage their existing technical skills. Without these abilities, technical skills lose their impact and interpersonal friction can fill the gap.
To be professionally effective in a modern workplace, employees need to be able to work well with others, influence their stakeholders, use their skills and knowledge with impact, and manage relationships with intent and skill. It requires an understanding of interdependence, a flexibility of approach, an aware of context and politics and the capacity to work across functions, silos and teams.
Rather than a short-term focus on task completion, effective employees understand the ‘why’ underlying their role and its contribution, align their focus and energy with organisational strategy and targets, but do so in a way that doesn’t come at a cost to their wellbeing, productivity or relationships. It’s not goal-achievement at any cost, but rather in a way that supports ongoing success and achievement.
How can employees improve their impact at work?
Context sits at the very heart of professional effectiveness. To be effective, professionals need to be able to root their behaviour and decisions in the organisational context and its priorities. They need to be able to work across organisational silos, get behind goals and targets and invest their energy appropriately.
Rather than ‘getting through’ the week or month, professional effectiveness is based on a sustainable mindset, where the longer-term consequences of today’s decisions and behaviour get more than a passing consideration.
The most impactful professionals aren’t perfect: but they learn from their mistakes, actively reflect on their own performance to improve it, and engage in ongoing learning and development. As part of this, professionals benefit from feedback when they signal to others they are both open to receiving it and willing to act on it.
What skills support effectiveness?
Despite the diversity of organisational cultures, missions and strategies, we see some similar personal qualities that senior stakeholders wish to see in their employees:
- A sensitivity to the organisational context, its mission and values
- Consideration of the impact of decisions on colleagues and other stakeholders
- A willingness to change their approach when the situation requires it
- An ability to work in a sustainable pattern, without negatively impacting others
- The capacity to bring the organisational values to life in everyday behaviour
- The drive to pursue meaningful goals and bring others with them
- Consistent role-modelling of organisational standards, norms and values
- Ongoing reflection and self-directed development and learning.
How we can help
We have a range of coaching and training solutions to support employees’ professional effectiveness, including:
- Delegation skills
- Goal-setting
- Habit-formation
- Values in action
- Reflection and change
Get in touch today
Talk to us about how we can help your leaders, managers and teams boost their professional impact and effectiveness.