To be effective as a leader, it’s critical that you have the ability to influence and persuade others. You need to be a master of persuasion to create changes in others attitudes and behaviour. And you need strong influencing skills to gain their commitment to your ideas in a way that is ethical and
Management skills are critical for all organisations. But how do you develop them? This post describes my experience of developing management skills for a technology start up. Avanade was a global start-up formed as a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft. The core purpose of the company was to provide business technology solutions and managed
In my blog post “Top Ten Tips for Taking Control of Your Career”, I recommend that you “Find mentor(s) and sponsor(s) to support you. To make progress in your career you will need the help, support and encouragement of others. Take some time to identify those individuals who could assist you in some way. Find
A coaching culture at work develops leaders and managers at all levels of the organisation. And that was the important thing for the organisation I am going to talk about in this post. In 2008, Mark McKergow, the Director of sfwork – The Centre for Solutions Focus at Work, invited me to be the Programme
Are you interested in developing future leaders. in your organisation? Then maybe you’ll be interested in my experience of developing future leaders for the Business Process Management (BPM) division of Accenture UK The BPM division was responsible for providing outsourced IT services to a wide range of clients from BP in Aberdeen to the Stock
Change is hard! We know from neuroscience that people like certainty so change is unsettling. One of the roles of any leader is to help their employees cope with change. Over the last few years, I have been running a “Solutions Focus Coaching for Leaders” programme with an NHS Trust. Like most organisations, the Trust
We may not like it but others will judge us, daily, not necessarily on the quality of our work but on minor details and passing remarks. These shape opinions. Often we ignore such views. But if you are to increase the impact you have on others, you need to develop a strong brand and reputation
Resistance to change is a natural phenomenon. At an individual level, change can create a mixed range of emotional response. A Global Survey by McKinsey in 2006 (Organising for Successful Change Management), shows that where change had not been successful, the dominant emotions were anxiety, frustration and confusion. While those emotions were not necessarily absent
In my experience, one of the most common reasons managers want to adopt a coaching style of leadership is because they want to help employees find their own solutions rather than tell them what to do. Usually, they know they have a skilled team of professionals and they want to build their confidence in solving
As a profession, HR spends a fair time agonising over how to raise our profile as a strategic partner and add value to the business. The accepted wisdom is that we need to “sell the benefit” of HR and the initiatives designed to get the best out of people. But I am inclined to disagree.
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