Ideas, insights and inspirations
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How do you create a virtual coffee machine?
Hybrid working is blamed by many organisations for impacting the creativity and relationship-building that came from chance encounters at the water cooler. If you want your hybrid working team to maintain these spontaneous links, follow my strategy for a virtual coffee machine.
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Are you ready for another ‘new normal’ ?
In times of unprecedented change and challenge you need to be realistic. Use these four questions to help you reflect and get ahead.
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Even the little words count – what your communications say about you
In every communication you can demonstrate your values and build connection with your audience – even in the hardest times.
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People with Purpose
Thinking about your purpose in life, and how it helps you succeed, prompted by ammonites on the beach.
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Change under pressure – 10 lessons from the NHS response to Covid-19
10 key lessons in successful and innovative change under extreme pressure, from the NHS.
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Ensuring performance improvement: a review of Learning Transfer at Work by Paul Matthews
How to make sure learning and development activities actually generate the performance change you want.
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It’s good to talk…
“Meetings are the bane of everyone’s life. No-one likes meetings. Nothing ever gets done” This appears to be the mantra of many a corporate warrior, and it is always interesting to see how different companies and industries try to break this view. So I particularly enjoyed an article in The Guardian newspaper about team meetings…
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Avoiding the stuffed anteater: striving for authenticity
In recent times we’ve grown used to the idea of ‘fake news’ and doctored photos, and even been warned about technological advances enabling ‘fake video’ – but the story a while ago of a photographer accused of using a stuffed anteater in a competition entry was sadly amusing. It was followed up by a couple…
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Levelling the Playing Field
My eye was caught some time ago by an article in The Atlantic lauding tech company Slack for its diversity. In a sector that is traditionally white and male they have reached unprecedented levels of female and ethnic staff members. This is good news; all research studies show that more diverse workforces have better performance…
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5 of the best… Strengths Tools
If you want to find out your strengths, your best bet is to use one of these five strength assessment tools. They differ greatly in the number/categories of strengths, what you get for your money, and options for follow-up work, such as bespoke development programmes. We think that each assessment has value and can appeal…
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Appreciative Inquiry: Strength-based organisational influence
We’ve all been there. You are tasked with delivering a significant change to processes, products or ways of working. Before you even start you are told by colleagues or staff that this will never happen, it’s impossible to do and all you feel is push-back. Leading change can feel like pushing a boulder up a…
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Review: The Strengths-Focused Guide to Leadership
If you want a practical manual to understanding how to harness strengths, for you and your team, this book is a great place to start, as it: introduces the key concepts of strengths provides the research base for more inquisitive readers illustrates with narratives prompts you with a range of exercises and action points explains…