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

How do you respond when you’ve stuffed up on a task? Or when you’ve planned to walk part of the way to work –  and it rains? How about when you get some criticism from a colleague? The chatterbox in our head has a huge bearing on how we feel, and therefore on our resilience to… Read more

I often work with groups or individuals on goal-setting. It may be as part of the annual appraisal (yes, there’s a Zoomly bite-sized workshop for that), 1:1 conversations about development and progress, or a coaching conversation. Within the work context, I think it’s a bit simpler to set goals, because when it’s done right, there… Read more

Good question! Seriously, if you’re giving some thought to your audience’s likely questions, you’re way ahead of many other presenters. Whilst it’s essential to prepare your material and yourself, there’s much more to a successful presentation than the ‘ME show’. Failing to prepare for your audience – and their questions – is preparing to fail…. Read more

Oh dear. Sorry to hear that. It’s going to be OK; you’re not the first, nor will you be the last person to fail the g-test. And like all of us who preceded you, right now you’re probably wondering what gravitas is – let alone how to get it. So first, a definition from vocabulary.com:… Read more

It’s that time of year…even though we left school a while back, September exerts a powerful pull on us to get learning (well, here in the Northern hemisphere at least). With that in mind I’ve got a download coming up for you: ‘20 ways to learn at work’ – make sure you’re on Zoomly’s email… Read more

A question I sometimes hear from participants in Zoomly’s workshops is ‘How can I convince someone to step up?’ When we explore this it’s often the case that the person in question seems to lack confidence – even though their manager sees them as very capable. For example, they: Seek approval for every step of… Read more

  Your colleague – maybe your best work buddy – just got promoted, and you didn’t. As well as feeling pleased for them, for some of us it’s natural to feel a pang of envy too. But don’t let this feeling get the better of you. Get jealous and it could sour an important working… Read more

I’ve written elsewhere – and of course in The Feedback Book – about the importance of getting feedback. We could all do with more feedback, so long as it’s of the considered, clear and actionable kind. We can also get feedback by practising self-review and reflection, to raise our awareness of how we did what… Read more

Often when I’m facilitating a workshop, particularly on topics that cover leadership, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and our mental wellbeing, the subject of emotions comes up. Yet when I ask people to shout out some words for emotions, after ‘Happy’, ‘Angry’ and ‘Sad’ they can soon run out of ideas. Many of us seem to struggle… Read more

When I facilitate Zoomly’s ‘How to build confidence’ bite-sized workshop, one of the tasks we do early on is identify our ‘confidence gremlins’. These insidious little creatures can give us A Really Hard Time, and sabotage our confidence. Confidence Gremlins can show up after we’ve given our confidence a test, and maybe it’s taken a… Read more