When you arrive at your desk to start your working day, the first thing you need to do is check what is on your appointments, and what you need to achieve before the end of your day. Think of your calendar as a map of your day. A single view of all your appointments, separated […]

You might well ask, why use a competency approach? What’s wrong with the current way the company does things? A competency based approach is more appropriate because it is more rigorous and built around the concepts of superior performance and measurability. Competencies can be defined in a number of ways. One suitable definition is that […]

Start the meeting at the end, as in “When the attendees leave the meeting we will have achieved the following…” Always remember that meetings are held to make decisions and not to discover information about a topic. So identify any specific information required to achieve the result and have that distributed to all the attendees […]

People are the most important asset of any business. From the biggest global corporate to the smallest local firm, employees and the contribution they make are imperative to the success of any company. In order for a business to survive in increasingly competitive times, business leaders need to put processes in place to regularly audit […]

A recent study found that only about one in four employees was “psychologically committed to their jobs and likely to be making positive contributions to their organisations”. So what can you do about it? By Kate Kearins. Engagement seems to be everywhere in the workplace lexicon – and for good reason. Employee engagement raises innovation […]

What if the tools you need to revolutionise the way you work are right under your nose, and you didn’t know it? When mankind were “hunter gatherers” life was measured in heartbeats. We now live in the information age, and our lives can be measured in keystrokes. Both hunter gatherers and information workers live only […]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4 Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership – starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers…

“Conflict is an inevitable part of the work environment – the question for management is not how to avoid it but how to manage it effectively.” New research into the extent of conflict in New Zealand workplaces has found that within a 12 month period almost one quarter (24 percent) of employees had experienced at […]

Isn’t it a great feeling when you’re heading home from a good day at work? The air seems fresher and the day seems brighter. There’s a positive spring in your step. But why are those days so rare? We all have to breathe to supply oxygen to our bodies. Similarly we need to work to […]

Is it education, attitude or personality that ultimately means success – or is it something else? When a group of people are working together results ultimately separate them out into three different outcomes: Very successful — they have made it happen Just achieved — they see it happen Not successful — and wonder what happened […]