Soft Skills for Tough Times
Of all the Soft Skills, I’ve always felt that Negotiation is the least soft. Partly, it’s because of the meticulous planning and almost forensic preparation which negotiations receive from teams locked away in war rooms, pouring over plans and scheming how to position...
STORYTELLING WITH THE 5C’S
Explaining a complex process or illustrating an abstract idea is easier when we take a picture of it. I expect the first travellers to the Egyptian Pyramids were met by itinerant sales people waiving paintings of the desert spectacle because they knew that the...
MANAGING UP
Derek’s latest promotion was a step up to the top. After working as a Product Specialist and then Country Key Accounts Manager, his next step was to take on a top management role with regional responsibility. Six months into his new role, Derek had learned a lot,...
Internal Vacancy: Champion for Critical Thinking (CT)
Dear Executive, What’s your view about Critical Thinking? Would it be correct to say that internal criticism of your company would only be acceptable if it were initiated by management. It’s difficult to imagine a situation where an employee would proactively aim a...
Shiny, Happy People … Engaging!
‘If we end up working from home for, say, half the week, the fall in commuting would slash emissions, pollution and rush-hour traffic while boosting … happiness’ Simon Kuper, FT Weekend How will we work after Covid? It’s a question being asked now by the...
Make Friends with Time
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future’‘Fly Like An Eagle,’ The Steve Miller Band Coming into my third week working from home, Steve Miller’s 1976 take on Time...
Home Sweet Office?
When the coronavirus first hit, a friend conducted a survey to see which of her staff would be interested in working from home. Three of them said they would agree to switch, a response rate of less than 50%. The others said they would rather stay in the office citing...
Personality Testing – A Case of Tail Wagging Dog
An article about Personality Testing raises thoughts about developing our own perception of how we actually are as a manager rather than back fitting our behaviour into a prescribed model