I thought, what with it being the end of the year, it would be good to revisit some previous articles as we review the year. So, here are three (for three is the magic number) of my favourite articles published in 2018, and some of the reasons why! In no particular order… Continue reading

Today, I want to talk about so-called ‘Resilient Leadership’. Cary Cooper, the well-known professor and business expert, depicted some while ago the hard times we live in and suggested a call for resilient leaders. He paints a vivid picture of the stresses the economy is undergoing and suspects the SME sector in particular will be severely hit. The changes coming will no longer be optional but inevitable, so embracing change becomes the mantra. To do this we need what he calls ‘resilient leaders’ and elsewhere ‘real leadership’. Continue reading

Engagement is an important topic, and becoming increasingly more important as a greater portion of the world becomes part of the province of big business. Mapping Motivation for Engagement promotes a new model for engaging and motivating employees which takes a bottom-up, people-centric approach. Continue reading

Time is flying by us as we draw ever closer to the Mapping Motivation for Engagement book launch, with authors Steve Jones and James Sale! This book, and the launch itself, marks a key evolution of thought on employee engagement. Continue reading

On the 24th October, we announced the Mapping Motivation for Engagement book launch at The Judge’s Court, Brown’s Covent Garden, in London, on the 29th November. We also introduced our two authors Steve Jones and James Sale. This launch promises to be a galvanising event: full of ideas, energy and expertise, opening up the wider discussions of how we solve the problems of engagement, employee moral, and motivation in our modern world. Continue reading

Mapping Motivation for Engagement is a stimulating and thought-provoking read for a wide audience including, but not limited to, trainers and coaches working in management and motivation, experts in human resources, internal learning and development and organisational development as well as change and engagement consultants and specialists. Continue reading

Increasingly, organisations are beginning to wise up to the idea that change management is one thing. Let’s improve the structure, the strategy or the system, or all these things in tandem. But unless the people can ‘perform’ all their labour is in vain. Continue reading

Recently, on a Maps training session, my friend asked me about the strange anomaly of the eight levels of the Maslow Hierarchy, according to the version that we refer to, and the way we fit the nine motivators into it. How does that work? he asked. It’s a good question, and important to get to grips with. Continue reading

How many great people reveal that they could never have done what they did without their partner, friends, parents, or an early role-model who believed in them? So, we can see that mentoring is essential, even, bizarrely, for those who self-teach. Continue reading

Marketing, as Peter Drucker observed, was one of the two functions that alone made money for a business – all else was a cost. Thus it is PDI – Pretty Damned Important! It’s a shame, therefore, that it only does – usually – half the job. True, that half it may do spectacularly well, but polished fake diamonds with all the branding collateral imaginable are still … only fake. Continue reading

Recruitment is a serious business. Indeed, it could and can be argued that the number one skill of an effective leader is their ability to be able to recruit effectively. Leadership itself is the primary cause of success in any organisation; how often do we observe the sad demise of so many organisations who have basked in the sunlight of one particular leader’s skill and ability, but this has not been replicated in depth throughout the whole organisation. Continue reading

According to Martin Davidson, a professor of business administration at the University of Virginia, business culture can tend to weed out the weird! This can be a big mistake because it is ‘weird’ people, or certain kinds of weird people, that create potency and innovation which enable businesses to thrive. This can be expressed in a variety of ways, but the most obvious is perhaps in the need to avoid cloning people into the culture they join... Continue reading

In order to turn calamity into success, we need a very special force: optimism. Optimism is one of those prerequisites for a successful life. Why? Because fundamentally it is about our belief system: the belief that things will turn out well. To those who believe, as Jesus himself said, all things are possible. And the well known law of attraction also informs us that what we don't want will come our way if we spend most of our time thinking about it. Continue reading

Whilst the players are to be commended for their heroic efforts and dazzling technical displays, particularly from the aptly named Harry Kane (fear the lash of his free-kick), I believe the success of the team in reaching the semi-finals, along with the psychological paradigm shift and complete transformation of attitude, is down to their coach and leader: Gareth Southgate. Continue reading

Carl Jung observed that "All true things must change and only that which changes remains true". This is a profound paradox, especially when you consider that for all the talk of change there is today, the reality is that most people and most organisations don’t want it. Continue reading

In running training sessions and going into companies, I frequently find myself in conversation with staff and management. At some point, the issue turns from the specific training to more personal matters – their professional development. Unsurprisingly, this topic never fails to interest. How do we develop professionally? Continue reading

We are happy when we are in harmony; according to the Tao Te Chingi, in harmony with the Tao. The Tao is the Way - essentially, the natural flow of the universe and how it operates. It is an impersonal force according to the Tao Te Ching, but there is no problem in calling this 'God' if one wishes to. The point is that the universe conforms and complies with certain rules and principles and when we violate these we suffer. Continue reading

Coaching starts with considering the issue of self-awareness for the simple reason that the person who is not self-aware has – by definition – no awareness, or consciousness, that there is anything on which to work within one self. This applies as much to self-development as it does to coaching a client. If a cat scratches its fur going through a barbed wire fence, we know it has become ‘aware’ of the injury because it will start to lick the wound relentlessly in its efforts to heal the scratch. Continue reading

Underpinning coaching, and great coaching especially, is the issue of asking useful, relevant and sometimes intuitive questions. In later chapters we consider in more detail other core skills that make up the tool-kit, as it were, of the effective coach. But keep in mind that it is not the function of the coach to provide answers for the client; mentorsi may do that; however, coaches enable the client to find the answers for themselves. Continue reading

People today talk of their Work-Life Balance, which is good, but not entirely accurate; it suggests a split between work and life, a choice between the two which can be remedied by information or techniques that will enable them to co-exist in harmony: you can have work and life! However, work is part of life and the split is not two ways, but three, and it is the invisible 'third' element that makes all the difference in the world to the other two. Continue reading

It is not an original observation to say that in most work places we look we find that most people are not highly motivated. In many cases they are not motivated at all. They need to work and their commitment to and engagement with their employer extends no further than the next pay cheque. This is not a desirable state of affairs, and there are many reasons for it, but perhaps the most unnoticed aspect of the whole business is how little attention employers pay to the issue. Continue reading

We all want success; we plan and work for it; and then it comes along and we think it will be forever. At an organizational level, as well as at a personal, this can be very dangerous. Indeed, the value of yin can be salutary, for success can have dreadful pitfalls. To bring in Greek mythology: success can be a kind of hubris, a sense that we are gods and can completely determine our own outcomes forever. Continue reading

Everyone at some time or another experiences negative self talk. As sapient creatures, aware of ourselves, unlike most animals we have immense capacity for self criticism. But it is not just our awareness of ourselves – and our flaws – that creates this self talk. Continue reading

Why do we want to be motivated? So far, in this web series, we’ve discussed numerous ways in which we can get motivated, and maintain our motivation levels through stressful experiences, but it’s worth also pausing and considering why we want to attain motivation in the first place. There are so many reasons, but one key one – at least from a business standpoint, as opposed to the personal and spiritual sphere – is performance and productivity; the two go hand in hand. Continue reading

All growth and personal development begins with self-awareness: the self being aware of itself, becoming aware of dissatisfaction with its self, and projecting, therefore, changes that will enable it to ‘improve’. In other words, to engage in a creative process with itself. There are three primary and creative tools of personal development that follow from this self-awareness. Continue reading