Practical tips. Prompts to get you thinking. The odd rant.

Ever wondered why some teams are super effective and others screw up far more often? It may be the team isn’t learning from their day-in, month-out work and is repeating old mistakes. If this is problem, checklists can really help. If you’re working remotely, they’re essential. Sound out some teams about whether they use checklists… Read more

Some of us find we’re much more productive working from home, using tech tools to communicate virtually. The rest of us find it harder to deflect or deal with distractions and stay focussed to get the job done. Some people find that, despite the use of email, video calls and chat channels, communication suffers. This… Read more

Live virtual* training courses / workshops have been around for a little while now (and yes, Zoomly offers them). At time of writing, demand has soared, as more employees work from home. People still want and need to learn, develop and grow their skills. Obviously, there are differences between face-to-face and virtual training – yet… Read more

In these strange times, I think it’s worth taking a fresh look at the benefits of keeping a journal. Pouring our thoughts into a journal can be cathartic, comforting and give us something to look back at in the future. “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on… Read more

  Regular readers will know that, from time to time, I share links to recent articles, blog posts and videos that come under the broad title of ‘psych stuff’. Right now, I’m trying very hard to avoid focusing on that word, you know…that word beginning with ‘pan’ and ending in ‘ic’ (anyone else notice that?)… Read more

Participants in Zoomly’s workshops often hang back to ask me questions at the end, and I feel privileged to be asked.  The ‘How to manage upwards’ session is typical. I’ll always do what I can to help. Yet I’m acutely aware that I don’t work there and I’m not their manager. But I try to… Read more

Here’s a post from the vault that I hope will help you if you’re new to remote working. More and more of us are working remotely; some of us some of the time, some of us all of the time. There are pros and cons… What’s great about working remotely? Many of us can now… Read more

Most of us are always learning in some way: to build our knowledge, master a new tech tool, or to boost our presentation skills for example. Beyond the workplace, we might be learning a new language or trying to improve our technique in our preferred sport. As adults, we learn differently to young children, who… Read more

Recently I’ve been leading Zoomly’s ‘How to develop your leadership style’ workshop quite a lot for different clients. One of the first tasks participants work on in is to consider the leaders who’ve inspired them. Time and again I observe teams discussing this somewhat hesitantly at first, but soon the tempo shifts to an inspirational… Read more

In these difficult times, we’re all using a range of tech tools to communicate at the moment – which can only be a good thing. Video meetings, chat channels and instant messages all help. And yet for most of us, email is still our default communication tool. So I thought it might help to offer… Read more