Management

We deliver many courses where issues relating to meetings take centre stage.  On average, I believe that 80% of individuals, particular managers, say they have problems with meetings, they think they would save a massive amount of time if they weren’t invited.  Moreover, many say that attending the meeting is a waste of time because nothing happens anyway.  What happens is that we...

Many individuals get promoted at work because they are good at their job.  What can then follow is a real struggle to get to terms with their new role, not because they struggle with the job, but that they struggle with their role as a manager. Being an excellent manager requires many skills including the ability to motivate, delegate and...

There is no doubt that as a manager, you are likely to get frustrated.  If we are honest this could be reasonably often; people may not work the same way we do, and of course, sometimes people may have different values and work ethics, and we will get frustrated and angry.  Of course, this is called life; we will always...

I am very, very lucky. One of my hobbies is travel and also music so last weekend I had the great experience of taking my son to see one of his favourite bands, ‘Muse’ in Cologne, Germany.   It was a boiling hot weekend with temperatures above 40 degrees sometimes. My son made it to the front of the stage, but my wife...

I was delivering a training course recently, where we were talking about the importance of training evaluation.  A delegate on the course then said: “My boss won't let me do any evaluation”. I said “Why”, and she answered, “Well he said if you don’t ask them and we won't get anything negative”. Yes, I know its incredible, the fact that this...

Recently I have had the experience of working with a great group of people involved in an interesting project.  The group are keen and are interested in making the project work; they are highly motivated.  One manager of the group is also very enthusiastic but suffers from a potentially dangerous condition called overcomplication! Paralysis by analysis is a severe condition.  You can take...

As a manager or leader, it is so easy to get wrapped up in your world and your workload.  Of course, we need to focus on our workload, but you have to remember an essential part of any managers workload is their team. People you manage must come first! Without appropriate time being made available, then there is a danger that they...

I was delivering training recently when one of the delegates said to me he was on the course because I said he should do it!  When I asked further, he told me in a blog I mentioned about the fact that training managers, if they want to be effective, should really know how to train people. I believe this is true.  Realistically...

I recently had an experience where someone took me flying and nearly killed me!  I am a pilot and regularly fly in our North East home, and I am fortunate enough to experience flying frequently.  The pilot in charge was very experienced in terms of operational procedures but unaware to me, had real issues with the runway we were using that day...

I want to share a recent experience which happened to me.  As I am sure, you can appreciate being a trainer within a training company we use hotel and venue facilities regularly.  The majority are, in my opinion, good and offer an excellent service and reasonable value for money; I want to point out that I am always the first to comment...