October 02, 2015

Big Data - is it all that?

October 02, 2015/ Jeff Wolfin

In his book "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams posed the “Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything”. As many of you know, a huge super computer famously came up with the answer of 42. What less people might know is that this super computer also went on to say that the answer was meaningless. This popped into my head earlier this week as I was reading an article about Brentford Football Club. It was not a football story but one about ‘Big Data’ and a question as to whether or not it is the answer to all our prayers that some think it is.

July 25, 2015

Why such as dislike of selling?

July 25, 2015/ Jeff Wolfin

You can sometimes smell the fear…

Some would say that with an ‘ample’ nose like mine, I should be able to smell most things however there is a serious point to be made here. Not about my nose but about a fear and loathing of selling.

June 08, 2015

Hang on a minute, haven't we been here before...

June 08, 2015/ Jeff Wolfin

Is it just me or is there an ever increasing number of schools of thought on how to manage the human psyche in the workplace? Many years ago, and with the publication of Daniel Goleman’s book, it was Emotional Intelligence. Then NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) became popular. Now mindfulness is very much in vogue. As is managing unconscious bias. Not to mention Neuroscience. So what’s next?

February 09, 2015

Empowerment....yeah, right!

February 09, 2015/ Jeff Wolfin

Empowerment has got to be one of the most over used words in the modern business lexicon. Everyone talks about how important it is but if there is ever a word that qualifies for the “Easy to talk the talk but walking the walk, that’s completely different” award, then surely it’s the word empowerment.

January 08, 2015

If you are going to do it, do it right - Developing Sales Capability

January 08, 2015/ Jeff Wolfin

For too long, training and development has suffered from being seen as a ‘nice to have’. In many cases, it is the first budget to get cut when the purse strings are being tightened. Now I know, given what I do for a living, I might be slightly biased but I don’t get it! Firstly, organisations are made up of people. Secondly, most of these people are constantly being asked to do what they do better, cheaper and faster and finally, no-one is the finished article (or at least no-one has admitted it to me!). If this is the case, surely boosting the motivation, skill and confidence of an organisation’s people – which is what development is all about - is pretty fundamental.

January 08, 2015

If you are going to do it, do it right - Objective Setting

January 08, 2015/ Jeff Wolfin

It’s that time of year when many of us sit down and start the performance management cycle once again.

Now we could have an interesting debate about how appropriate the traditional performance management process is for the modern day business world. Is the Parent/Child dynamic, annual goal setting ritual and annual or bi-annual performance appraisal ‘fun fest’ really fit for purpose anymore? Hmmm! Some organisations have even abandoned the process altogether!

However on the basis that for the moment, many of us do participate in the process, we thought we would share some tools with you that you may find useful. They come from work we did with a client last year that in many ways was very revealing.

December 09, 2014

Trust me, I am a salesperson!

December 09, 2014/ Jeff Wolfin

To some, the words ‘salesperson’ and ‘trust’ do not belong in the same sentence. Worse still, even the mere mention of the word ‘selling’ or ‘salesperson’ is enough to send some buyers into a spin. Now of course most of us in sales are a touch (OK much) more sophisticated than the old Del Boy image of sheepskin coat, slicked back hair, bling covered hands and the “Alright my son…” opening gambit however there are still many salespeople who seem to miss some of the more subtle and very impactful ways that trust can be both lost and built.

November 21, 2014

The Secret Source of Outstanding Leadership - highlights

November 21, 2014/ Jeff Wolfin

The 19th November saw our latest 'Secret Source' event, this time the 'Secret Source of Outstanding Leadership'.

Hosted by Andy Williamson and Jeff Wolfin, over 40 people from over 25 different businesses gathered in central London. They ranged from global corporates such as GE, Vodafone, RSA Insurance and British Airways through to SME’s, new business start-ups and charities. They all came to listen to, discuss and share different perspectives on a defining skill of the 21st century leader – the ability to exercise good judgement. This was defined as ‘Taking conscious decisions and actions that are not unduly or undesirably influenced by our conditioning’.

October 14, 2014

Giving negative feedback? First things first!

October 14, 2014/ Jeff Wolfin

I have lost count of the amount of times people have asked me for a technique for giving negative feedback. The world is awash with them and if you have ever attended management or leadership programmes you will have learned one or more of them. We can all have our opinions on which ones are best however they are all much of a muchness.

September 29, 2014

Lessons FOR sport FROM business

September 29, 2014/ Jeff Wolfin

A huge amount is written about what business people can learn from great sports people. In fact, entire post sporting careers have been built on speaking engagements that pass on the insights from sporting success to the workplace - much of which makes good sense. However, being a champion of good business practice and a self-confessed sports nut, I wonder if we can invert this and look at the lessons managers in sport can potentially learn from managers in business.

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