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

“What’s it to them?” I hear you say. Ask CFOs about ‘under-delegation’ and you’ll probably get a pithy reply at least – or a lecture on the damage that under-delegating can inflict on the bottom line. Particularly if your employer provides professional services – such as strategic consultancy, architecture, business development, marketing expertise, financial advice,… Read more

“Why should I be a mentor? What’s in it for me?” can be the response when people are approached to lend their support to a mentoring scheme. Fortunately, there are also those who simply want to support others and give a little back when a new mentoring scheme gets announced. As someone who has the… Read more

  “But what if I give someone constructive feedback and it doesn’t work?” This question sometimes comes up in Zoomly’s ‘How to give effective feedback’ workshop. It may be that the participant has given a colleague feedback on their work and has yet to see any improvement in performance. Or, as is often the case… Read more

As we take tentative steps to emerge from lockdown, it seems like a good time to share some interesting psychology posts and articles that I’ve found. Here goes: Can you tell if someone’s lying, just by how they speak?  Recent research suggests we’re not as gullible as presumed. Loudness, pitch and emphasis all give us… Read more

If you speak English because you were born and raised in the UK, giving feedback can be painful. It’s a culture thing. We’re so concerned about about making everyone comfortable and not upsetting anyone, we can dress up feedback with verbiage, meaningless platitudes and tie ourselves in knots of nonsense in the process. Sometimes out… Read more

At different times and in different situations I’ve been fortunate to benefit from the wisdom of mentors – and been privileged to have mentored others. I also help clients get their mentoring programmes working well. For a mentoring relationship to flourish and deliver the desired results it needs to be more than ‘just a chat’… Read more

When I facilitate ‘How to delegate effectively’ workshops, something participants need help with early on is their reluctance to delegate. This can show up as self-imposed obstacles that get in the way such as, “I don’t want to overload them”, “I’m not sure they’ll get it right”, “I’m too busy to delegate properly” and of… 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

If you’re going to progress, you need to delegate. It just doesn’t make sense – professional, financial and for your wellbeing – to be doing the stuff that goes with your old pay grade.

  “What’s an ‘amygdala hijack’ – and how would I know if I’ve had one?” Let’s take the terminology first: the term emerged in Daniel Goleman’s best-selling book, ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ’. Goleman offered an accessible term for the neurological stimulus-response that occurs when the amygdala perceives a threat and… Read more