When it comes to books that cover business, the field grows ever wider: management, economics, start-up stories, tech breakthroughs and, increasingly, scandals. There are heaps of different ‘best of’ lists, each with heaps of different choices (there’s a selection at the end of this post). As 2019 comes to an end it seems I’m… Read more
Whenever I run Zoomly’s ‘How to plan and prioritise’ workshop, as the group identifies their daily ‘time bandits’, meetings loom large. Typical comments are that they take too long and deliver too little. No wonder that people fiddle with their phones…Are they really an essential, valuable of getting things done? Or just a waste of… Read more
Something that’s been coming up in Zoomly’s workshops recently is goals. Not in a good way; we’re talking about goals that are unclear, too vague and utterly unhelpful. Whether the topic is appraisal discussions, coaching skills for 1:1 conversations or simply giving feedback (yes, you can have a Zoomly workshop on each of those topics),… 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
“How do I motivate people?” is a question that we deal with early on in Zoomly’s bite-sized workshop on the topic, as well as how NOT to. There’s more to it than high-fiving people or telling them they’re ‘awesome’ – much more. A useful exercise is to think of when you’ve felt really motivated about… Read more
Very often when people think of working on their communication skills, they’ll say they need to boost their speaking / presentation / influencing skills. Fair enough – those are indeed applications of communication skills – yet I have a sneaking suspicion that the focus is on transmitting more than receiving. I think the most under-rated… Read more
Poor you, that’s not a great position to find yourself in. First of all though, how on earth did you get here? Did your boss just wave, say ‘see ya later’ and disappear off to some beach? Or did you have an actual handover discussion before their holiday, where things were explained and you were… Read more
At the recent CIPD L&D Show, the Strengths Partnership team were out in full force, including one of the authors of this book (and co-creator of the tool), Dr Paul Brewerton. I think it’s fair to say that Strengthscope® is now firmly established as the UK’s leading assessment when it comes to helping teams and… Read more
What’s stopping you from delegating? This is something we deal with right at the start in Zoomly’s ‘How to delegate effectively’ workshop. For example, people can feel very uneasy about the whole idea of asking someone to take on a task and get it done. Typical objections that I’ve heard include: “They’ll think I’m arrogant”… 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
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