2016

As we near the end of another turbulent year, it’s a good time to take a look at something that will be familiar to most of us…. our team. Never has the phrase “not being able to see the wood for the trees” been so appropriate as when it is applied to the group of people with whom we spend much of our working lives. We may give our Read more...

We’re often asked for our opinions about ‘leadership styles’, and in this sound bite world we’re often considered to be rather verbose in our response. But there’s a reason we’re somewhat considered in our response to questions like “What leadership style works best when….?” or “How should a leader respond when….?” The Read more...

Maximising Leadership Opportunities on a Leadership  Programme by Roger Greenaway, Reviewing Skills Training One of the main challenges in designing a leadership programme (especially short ones) is to create enough opportunities for each individual to have several turns as leader. Courses for developing teamwork skills are more straightforward Read more...

International Facilitation Week (17th – 23rd October 2016) is hosted by the International Association of Facilitators to promote and engage facilitators all over the world about the power of facilitation. I have noted over the years that in many of the organisations I encounter, the prevalent approach to encouraging, supporting, and facilitating Read more...

After numerous studies we’re finally getting to the point where employability skills are less contentious, there’s a degree of acceptance about what these skills are, and just how important they are. It’s taken some time to get to this level of acceptance, and it may be argued that it is partially due to a misinterpretation of what the term Read more...

We all carry role labels, every day of our lives. We are father, mother, parent, leader, manager, teacher, facilitator etc etc. We move seamlessly between these labels: we leave the office where we have been a manager, to commute as passenger, to enter the store as customer, then to arrive home to adopt a whole range of entirely different labels Read more...

Many projects and teams work across different departments, sites and even different countries.  Throughout this process, many teamworking challenges can arise and barriers surface that might impact on the success of the project.  Just as with other initiatives, success is critical, and just because many different people are working on the project Read more...

A recent report from McKinsey suggests that the vast majority of leadership programs fail to achieve significant, transferable leadership learning.They highlight four potential reasons that we are very aware of in our learning design Read more...

This week is the beginning of Learning at Work Week (16th - 22nd May 2016), and the theme is Connect. Here are three more things any manager or leader can do with their teams this week to promote connected-ness and learning: 1.      Connect with your team Use random imagery (a bunch of postcards, some images from the web, or a   Read more...

The trust equation or trust formula in practice. "Hard to build, easy to destroy" Thats the type of response I often get when working with managers or leaders and exploring the concept of trust. It seems to me that trust, real trust, in people in positions of authority is a rapidly diminishing thing and that blame and suspicion are, perhaps Read more...