Eureka! Eight years ago I coined the term The S-Factor. I even wrote a book with that as the title*. And now it’s more relevant and front-of-mind than ever. What is The S-Factor The S stands for successes and strengths and the S-Factor credo is that we need to spend time focusing on our strengths… Read more
Benefits of a Coaching Qualification
But why gain a coaching qualification? Coaching from a qualified practitioner is very different to training. It’s easy to train another person on a 1:1 basis. You focus on that one person, helping them improve in a specific skill or skills. This is not to say it should replace training. That would not be… Read more
Boost your Leadership Communication 2: Listening
Hush … what can babies usefully teach us about communication? If you think of babies, they listen before they speak. It’s by listening that they learn to speak. In fact, they’ve internalised all the grammar rules by the age if two – just by listening. So a baby is a better symbol of the importance… Read more
Want a more effective team? Learn coaching skills in Oxford this Spring
Would you like to motivate your team to be more productive? Is it your job to develop their skills? And do effective one-to-ones? If you lead or manage people, or develop others as a trainer, I’ve got great ideas you could use to make your team more productive. I’ve spent my career helping others develop their… Read more
Do you hire people like you?
Finally the staffing penny dropped Recently I realised two obvious things: I keep hiring people who are like me when I need people who are the opposite, the ones who do well what I do badly. I need to develop completely different thinking styles for specific contexts. The penny dropped when I realised I wasn’t… Read more
Do you zone in and out when listening?
Listening is always relevant. And it’s a natural human ability. We hear and listen before we learn to speak after all. But, as I heard someone say on the BBC, although listening is NATURAL for humans, it is not NORMAL. 7 reasons to listen better Because people share more when they are listened to, so you learn… Read more
Will poor pronunciation hold you back in your career?
A foreign accent won’t always hold you back. However, if people can’t understand you easily, it will. But perhaps the biggest problem of all is that people won’t tell you the truth. However fluent and correct your English, poor pronunciation can prevent you progressing in your career. And you might never know it until someone gives… Read more
Is your English foreigner-UNfriendly?
Did you know that some business people abroad don’t want to do business with Brits because we don’t speak clearly? And this isn’t the football hooligan Brit, it’s the nicely spoken professional. I’ve heard this before but today it cropped up again in a comment on one of my recent blogs about accents. It came… Read more
Innovation + Communication = Business Success
I was recently a judge in the Oxfordshire finals of the Young Enterprise schools’ competition. What a great preparation for the workplace. Each school competing has a team of teenage volunteers, aged from 15-17 usually, who start and run their own company, selling a product or service for the 9 months of the school year…. Read more
Generation Y and Why We Don’t Need to Worry
I recently attended a workshop on how to manage Generation Y. The basic premise being that those in the 20-30 age-bracket have been brought up on video games and networking websites so they are motivated by a different management style to the rest of the workforce. The Gist for Gen Y Gen Y are motivated… Read more
