Do you have so much time you don’t know what to do with it? Do you feel that you have so much energy to spare you could be mistaken for a Duracell battery? If you’re the same as most business leaders, chances are your answer to both questions is “NO!” And yet this week, you’ll waste time and energy doing things that are a pointless waste of time and energy – and, in some cases, downright dangerous too. This is my ...
How can you be more effective without simply spending more and more time at the coalface? This is a question that I know haunts many business leaders because it’s at the root of lots of conversations I have every day, both formally and informally. How great would it be if you could achieve more simply by changing your thinking? Well, I’m going to share with you the 5 most common thought processes that I find get in the way of leaders ...
What are the top points that your team members want to hear about when they come along to their Annual Performance Review (APR)? They want to hear what annual performance rating you currently have in mind to give them and, if that impacts their salary, they want to know by how much. So, it would make sense to talk about these points right up front. Right? Well, not if you follow the process that most APRs take. For most, the discussion ...
If ‘feedback is a gift’, how come it’s so often met with a negative reaction by those receiving it? As a leader you are required to give feedback to your reports – whether it be positive or negative – and despite your best intentions, you too often end up generating fear and anxiety for the other person. Why does it seem so hard to give feedback that is welcomed by the recipient? If you feel this way, then you’re not alone – this is ...
Fed up with poor communication in your business? Unsure what to do to get it right? You could benefit from hiring external expertise. This, combined with your commitment to change things, may be the recipe you’re looking for. But what barriers are there to building a partnership for success? This is a question that you share with many other business leaders. Having worked with many businesses to help improve their communication over the years, these are the top five problems that I find ...
Leaders staying visible during a crisis – that’s natural and easy, right? Well, my experience in working with leaders shows that the opposite is true, so if you find maintaining visibility is a challenge, you’re not alone. In one of the most memorable examples I have come across, the Managing Director of a high profile engineering firm more or less hid! As the crisis – a Union-led dispute – deepened, he first retreated to his office and closed his door, ...