You can lead a horse to water.....

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You can lead a horse to water.....

Does the following scenario sound familiar? Your company invests a significant amount of time, effort and money on a new sales, leadership or customer service training programme. It is launched with a certain degree of fanfare. The launch goes well – there is plenty of initial excitement and enthusiasm. However, in the end, there is little or no tangible improvement in performance and a few years later, more time, effort and money is spent on a new initiative.

Why does this happen? 

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Three Steps to Behavioural Change Heaven

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Three Steps to Behavioural Change Heaven

Human beings are resistant to change. Nothing new in that statement however over the years, many a change programme has floundered on those rocks. In truth, the business world has never really got to grips with the challenge. However, this is no longer an option. The business world has changed forever and no-one will be left untouched by the need to change, adapt and acquire new skills.

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Empowerment....yeah, right!

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Empowerment....yeah, right!

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.

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The Secret Source of Outstanding Leadership - highlights

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The Secret Source of Outstanding Leadership - highlights

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’.

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Lessons FOR sport FROM business

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Lessons FOR sport FROM business

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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Manager as coach - one factor that separates the best from the rest

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Manager as coach - one factor that separates the best from the rest

Most managers become managers because they were good at doing the job they are now managing others to do. As a manager therefore, it can be enormously tempting to use our experience and expertise to ‘fix’ situations and problems that our people may bring to us. Sometimes this is perfectly appropriate however, if this is too much of a habit, it can be the road to ruin. It creates a dependency and reliance on the manager that means they become overburdened and overworked and worst case, reduces the sense of ownership and responsibility of their direct reports to become more self-sufficient and deal with the issues themselves.

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