I recently engaged in an online dialogue on, sex, politics and religion. The person who started the post made the comment that we should NEVER talk about these topics.
Now I understand where the writer was coming from;talking about sex, politics and religion can break rapport, create conflict and ruin the career of the unwary but I have a different perspective. As humans, sex, politics and religion play a significant part of our lives and the biases and meanings we bring to these topics will significantly affect our behaviour; so to not talk about them can be equally dangerous. Continue Reading »
You only get one chance at a first impression. In this video Andrew Bryant, CSP shares some powerful tips for making a great first impression when you have to present in front of an audience.
In 1990 Peter Senge published a book that has become a classic, a book that most people in leadership and management roles in business, most who consult or coach within organizations, and those who seek to stay on the cutting edge of business have read. I’m speaking, of course, about the book The Fifth Discipline. The theme and central focus of this book is on learning to think and work systemically.
Senge was convinced that the key to business success rested in five disciplines, which when synergized by leaders and managers, will launch an organization or business into a creative mode and take it to a whole new level of effectiveness. Like the five critical component technologies that came together in 1935 for the McDonnell Douglas DC-3 and which ushered in the era of commercial air travel— Senge argued that the five components he discovered would create great companies.
A good resume cannot get you a job, but a bad resume will not get you an interview, and without an interview there is less chance of you getting the job.
A resume is usually the first impression that you make with a prospective employer. It gives you the opportunity to gain their interest and hold their attention by displaying your skills and experience before them. Continue Reading »
I believe that to survive and prosper we need to learn faster and to teach better.
Did you know that your learning follows a path? Firstly you don’t know what your don’t know, which is a state I like to call “blissful ignorance.” On the learning path this is known as unconscious incompetence. Continue Reading »
Do you spend your week in countless and some pointless meetings?
Would you like your organisation to adopt some guiding principles for meetings?
As I was conducting a leadership retreat last week, one of the participants complained of “meeting madness” and requested that the team adopt a code of conduct for meetings. I think this is a great idea and so I have jotted down some principles that you might adopt for your team or company.
Define the ‘type’ of meeting – is it to brainstorm ideas, evaluate options, make a decision or plan execution?
Specify a start and end time – meetings do not have to go for an hour, you can start a trend by having 15,20 or 30 minute meetings.
Invite only the people who need to be there – nothing is more of a time waster than sitting in a meeting that doesn’t concern you.
Send pre-reading by email – make sure people come prepared and on time and that way meetings are more efficient.
Start all meeting on time - if you wait, you send the message that it’s not important to be on time.
No using phones or laptops – the exception is the laptop for a presentation which should be limited to 10 slides max.
Identify a Chairperson – if the team doesn’t play nice or keep to time it is important that one person has the authority to call the meeting to order.
Send action points by e-mail after the meeting – to make sure what is agreed to gets done.
Avoid Friday – consider making Friday a no meeting day and see if people have time to finish off the weeks work and get some work-life balance.
A couple of yeas ago I was rushing to meet a new client, a CEO who required some coaching; as I was running short of time I chose to miss lunch and go straight to the appointment.
I was greeted at the company by the company’s communications manager who was to show me to the boardroom to meet the CEO. She politely asked me if she could get me anything, perhaps thinking I might need a tea or coffee. My response was, Continue Reading »
When I speak about leadership at a conference or workshop, I often talk about my children, Tasha (3 1/2) and Nathan (22 months). This is for a couple of reasons, firstly and selfishly because I am a proud father, secondly because it builds rapport with the audience and thirdly and most importantly because they are good examples of leadership and influence principles. In this blog post I wanted to share 3 such leadership principles.
1. Modeling Behaviour
Every parent knows that children are great mimics, they watch you like a hawk and duplicate your behaviour. This can be amusing, as when Tasha first started painting her nails after watching my wife or Nathan picking up my tennis racket and saying, “like daddy.” The dark side of this modeling is when children mimic the aggressive behaviour of adults, which was demonstrated by Dr. Albert Bandura with the Bobo Doll experiment and is evidenced in war torn areas of the world where children carry weapons.
Adults to0 model behaviour which is why the leaders of any team or organisation must “walk the talk”, they must be the model for the behaviours they wish to see duplicated. Talk is cheap – action is real.
2. Validation
Both Tasha and Nathan like to clap themselves when they do something right and they both beam when Zurina and I give them praise. As a leadership consultant I know how important it is that I continue to praise even moderately good performance as research by Dr Ethna Reid shows that teachers who get the best results, validate regularly. Successful teachers also alternate between teaching and questioning (testing) for comprehension.
In leadership and management in a hectic paced world it is all too easy to criticise poor performance and to tell rather than ask. In our leadership for managers program, we emphasise and rehearse the arts of validation and asking good questions.
3. Story Telling
Children love stories and interpret our cultural moral code from those stories. Tasha knows who are the good princesses (coutesy of Disney) and who is the evil queen, Nathan is learning from Thomas the Tank Engine that when you break the rules you go off the rails, he even exclaims very loudly “oh no!” when this happens.
Effective leaders also tell stories that let their followers know what the vision and culture of the organisation is. These stories get retold and strongly influence the behaviour of the team or workforce. When I was teaching coaching skills at Singapore Airlines I noticed how they regularly used stories of exemplary customer service to validate and reinforce the behaviour of going the extra mile service (GEMS).
Perhaps you have other Leadership Principles you have learned from children – feel free to share.
If you give enough presentations, there’s a good chance that someday you’re going to find yourself the target of an uncooperative or hostile audience member. As in most crisis situations, you will be in good stead to have a plan of how to respond. There are many verbal techniques available which will help you handle hostile or difficult audiences, some of which I am able to outline here. These are all tried and tested over the course of the last 10 years during my own personal training and presentation courses. Use them with confidence – they really work! Continue Reading »
I am writing this post on a rush hour train. I am in Sydney, Australia at the moment doing some work for a client, and am taking a 30 minutes commute.
As I engage in one of my favourite past times (people watching), I notice how different passengers handle the compression of their personal space. Continue Reading »
I recently engaged in an online dialogue on, sex, politics and religion. The person who started the post made the comment that we should NEVER talk about these topics.
A good resume cannot get you a job, but a bad resume will not get you an interview, and without an interview there is less chance of you getting the job.
Do you spend your week in countless and some pointless meetings?
A couple of yeas ago I was rushing to meet a new client, a CEO who required some coaching; as I was running short of time I chose to miss lunch and go straight to the appointment.
When I speak about leadership at a conference or workshop, I often talk about my children, Tasha (3 1/2) and Nathan (22 months). This is for a couple of reasons, firstly and selfishly because I am a proud father, secondly because it builds rapport with the audience and thirdly and most importantly because they are good examples of leadership and influence principles. In this blog post I wanted to share 3 such leadership principles.
I am writing this post on a rush hour train. I am in Sydney, Australia at the moment doing some work for a client, and am taking a 30 minutes commute.