You’re snowed under; you have too many meetings to attend and not enough hours in the day to get the work done. Does that sound familiar? You also have a team of pretty capable people and know that you should delegate more, in fact you...
Wouldn’t life as a manager be so much easier if everyone in your team was the same, so you could treat them all the same way? Unfortunately, managing people doesn’t work like that. Participants often tell us that one of the hardest things about being a...
Say you have an issue that requires a change in behaviour from an employee – how do you know when they’ve really ‘got it?’ How many times have you discussed a necessary change with a team member, where they have looked you in the eye and...
As you know, it’s not just what you say that matters, it’s the way that you say it! With so much written about interpreting body language, how are you supposed to know what’s right? Professor Albert Mehrabian's research provides the basis for the widely quoted and over-simplified...
When you give feedback, do people act on it? Do they welcome it? Do they do more of the things that go well? Do they adapt their behaviours to do less of the things that aren’t so helpful? There have been many situations when I’ve had...
Why do managers often avoid having conversations about career aspirations with their team members? We’ve had a whole host of responses to this question on our programmes. Here are the most common: “I don’t want to raise their expectations.” “They think they’re ready for promotion, but I don’t!” “I...
Like many, my first performance management experience was not a good one! It was an excellent lesson in how NOT to manage a performance conversation…I worked in the head office of a well-known jewellery retailer and my mid-year review was managed by Emilia* the HR...
You’ve just had an initial conversation with a new client who is the head of service within a medium sized organisation… the initial meeting went well, you established your credibility (using the techniques outline in our earlier Developing Credibility blog), you’ve gathered information about the...
There are many opinions on what it takes to be personally effective. Here, a view from the top of the world offers another perspective. The same perspective can be applied to your effectiveness at lower altitude – read on to find out how… At 8,848 metres,...
You’ve been asked to be a mentor. You’re delighted, but have no idea what’s involved! What does a mentor do? What will the mentee expect? How much time will it involve? What do you need to do to get started? What can you expect from the...
You’ve prepared your presentation, you know your subject, you’ve even rehearsed it in front of the dog (but he wasn’t interested). So, why are you still having nightmares about what could go wrong? When I work with groups to develop their Presentation Skills, I always ask...
It’s well known that Coaching is one of the essential tools in a leader’s toolkit. So, do you have it readily accessible in your toolkit or is it buried so deep that it rarely sees the light of day? How do you ensure that Coaching is...
Does your role involve you helping senior managers make effective business decisions? Have you moved from being a specialist 'expert’ to working alongside managers in a more consultative way? Is there an expectation that you need to be operating as a Business Partner with your internal or...
With so many differing views on leadership, how are you supposed to make sense of what you should be doing as a Leader? What do you need to do to get it right? If you want to know how to get it right, read on… To start with,...