October 2018

There are some brilliant managers out there who motivate and inspire their staff.  Those of us that have experienced brilliant, effective managers know how fantastic this can be. Unfortunately, many managers do the opposite, which can cause frustration and a great deal of dysfunctionality amongst teams.  Common management blunders include: Number One, Failing to Adapt Management Style -  Important that...

Have you ever walked away from a meeting thinking you have agreed on something, then what you haven’t agreed starts to happen? It is all about how we take our information in. Some of us like facts, really enjoy facts and need them to hang on to. Then there are others who find facts restrict their thinking; the facts get...

There’s a lot of doom and gloom around current affairs right now and reading Claire’s fantastic latest coaching blog about focusing on positivity reminded me of this.  This got me thinking about the past and a better approach for business about training: It’s a necessity that when times are hard in the economy and for business, things get reviewed to “tighten the...

I am really into workplace transfer.  In other words, transferring what was learnt on a training course and into the workplace.  To me, this is what training is all about. I was recently training a manager on a presentation skills course, and she had learnt loads and was looking forward to putting the skills and techniques into practice. She was...

The media has a lot to be responsible for along with the IT world. All we do these days is grab our phones, read the updated messages from social media and focus on what they want us to think. To get a feeling of what's happening these days, you have to read everything. But what is it we read? Everything is...

I was recently going through some of the past blogs for social media and came across one written by Ralph “Good at your job v good as a manager”. This is a subject that always rings true as I’ve witnessed it many times and it got me thinking that actually, there are huge comparisons with training: In my career, I’ve come across...

I was delivering a management development course recently when a delegate pointed out that they didn’t realise how much they didn’t know.  We were discussing conflict and how and why people get wound up, what causes it and how it could be an automated response created from a habit. The delegate in question said to me they had gone through years...

I recently found myself responding to my son in a conversation saying the words, “Be who you are and not what you think you should be”. Be an individual and someone not conditioned to be a certain way; it is all about you being you. Have you ever reflected on your journey in life how often are you... YOU? Have...

In my last blog I talked about the ability to “adapt and overcome” with one important part being the use of resources that are available to you.  Now as most travelling Trainers like me will tell you, we all carry what I refer to as my “bag of tricks” which is the name for my Trainer bag I take to every...