Why should you bother identifying your strengths? (And how?)

There are heaps of self-assessments, ability tests and personality assessment tools out there (I should know, having trained in a fair few). For the most part, they can be useful; particularly when it comes to raising self-awareness – the first step to becoming more emotionally intelligent. (By the way, if you want to check out… Read more

Differences between coaching and mentoring – what’s best for you?

I recently listened to an interesting podcast on BBC’s ‘The Bottom Line’ series entitled ‘Lonely at the top?’ Evan Davis hosted a discussion with an executive coach and two senior executives: one who’s worked with a mentor, another who at various times has worked with an executive coach. Unsurprisingly, there was a chunk of time… Read more

How managers rate themselves v how their employees rate them

The idea that most of us think we’re above average – which is of course statistically impossible – is well documented (just search ‘illusory superiority’ if you’re not sure). Most of us think we’re beyond the mid-point of the standard distribution curve, whether it’s how attractive we are, how good we are at driving –… Read more

10 questions to help you deliver a great presentation

Something I often hear when running Zoomly’s ‘How to deliver presentations’ workshop is that the client company has ‘their way’ of doing presentations. What that usually means is that they have a house style and guidelines for the slides. Whilst that’s all well and good – and preferable to dozens of different styles randomly being… Read more