This week I’m continuing on my theme setting out some of the most difficult situations managers have to face. Last week I wrote about How to make Managing Poor Performance Easy, and this week I set out the steps I believe are essential to successfully hold those difficult conversations, which only become easier with experience and practice. 

The worst kinds of conversation are those…

People Discovery is founded on the concept of Inspirational Leadership.  Most people have a good definition of what that means, for me it means you lead from within.  We all have wisdom inside of us; some of us are better practiced at tapping into that wisdom than others.   If you lead either a team, your family, or yourself from inner wisdom, it is a win/win scenario because you are also helping others tap into their own inner wisdom.   We aren’t always in the right state to tap into our…

Everyone goes through tough times at work, and in their personal life.  Of course, no one said life would be easy, but some people seem to get through the hard times better than others.  Whilst some people might get brought down by the announcement of a restructure at work or their role being made…

I love the excellent research recently undertaken by Psylutions and Curve Group, published as a white paper Best Practice in practice talent management, which…

If you're an acknowleged star at work and you wonder whether the grass might be greener on the other side, the evidence is likely to have you recommit to your current employer.

Here's why:

Recently LeadingCompany published a Harvard Business Review article based  on detailed research over seven years into the…

How can professional people, people who should know better, do such dumb things in the course of doing their job?

No, I'm not talking about Former CIA director David Petraeus and his affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell, I'm talking about the way some people use LinkedIn.

I currently have over 2,500 first level LinkedIn connections as well as being a member of about 40 LinkedIn groups. As a result I receive plenty of LinkedIn generated emails each day. Minor irritations…

Sometimes it's just easier to blame others and we all do it at times.  The problem is when we blame others, we disempower ourselves from our ability to get clear and do something to change our situation.  It was a lesson I learned harshly and firmly, but was one of the most empowering learning curves I've experienced.  

Today in a couple of separate encounters, one with a 14 year old girl and the other a 40 year old man, I heard how they had recently…

Many years ago when I was much younger, single and making my way in the world of work I carefully considered what type of education would help me develop my career. I had concluded that my economics degree may not be sufficient to take me where I wanted my career to go, which was into some form of leadership role.

I looked at the brochures (these were the pre-Internet days) of a few post-graduate programs that I was interested in that were available at various Sydney tertiary…

Best Practice Graduate Development Strategies

In a four part series, the team at DBL have put together a comprehensive ‘best practice’ guide to graduate development. Although by no means exhaustive, the series is a great resource and useful ‘how-to’ for graduate managers both new to the industry, and for veterans looking for new or fresh ideas to enhance their existing program, enjoy!

Regards…

As a young manager it was drummed into me that I focus on my customers and the services or products I provided to the customer.  It didn’t occur to me to question the philosophy in those days, after all the most senior people in the business advocated it and I certainly cared a lot about customers.

If you are outcome focused and performance manage your people against customer service, company standards, results, targets and outcomes, for example, you are practicing the key behaviours…

Best Practice Graduate Development Strategies

In a four part series, the team at DBL have put together a comprehensive ‘best practice’ guide to graduate development. Although by no means exhaustive, the series is a great resource and useful ‘how-to’ for graduate managers both new to the industry, and for veterans looking for new or fresh ideas to enhance their existing program, enjoy!

Regards…

Best Practice Graduate Development Strategies

In a four part series, the team at DBL have put together a comprehensive ‘best practice’ guide to graduate development. Although by no means exhaustive, the series is a great resource and useful ‘how-to’ for graduate managers both new to the industry, and for veterans looking for new or fresh ideas to enhance their existing program, enjoy!

Regards…

In a four part series, the team at DBL have put together a comprehensive 'how-to' guide for best practice graduate development. Although by no means exhaustive, the series is a great resource for graduate managers both new to the industry, and for veterans looking for new or fresh ideas to enhance their existing program, enjoy!

Regards,…

I recently had an ex-colleague who followed up with me as he was wanting to know the ‘rules’ or protocol around poaching employees from competitors. He was feeling a little squeamish about it and he felt it was ‘under-handed’ tactics as he put it.

So I said to him, ‘From a young age we have been taught it’s OK to poach’.

What do you mean? He said aghast!…

On the whole, managers welcome the relief from a difficult or non-existent approach, system or structure around the staff appraisal process.

You can also often strike the manager with the negative perspective in relationship to the employee performance appraisal process.

After many years of hearing their complaint and peeling away the layers of rationalisation the reason many managers hate the employee performance appraisal process is for a…

This is a question that comes up in various polls, groups and expert Q&A’s on social media boards repeatedly and often. You would think since the Industrial Revolution we would have evolved and managed to understand this fully, and in practice, yet still we have not come so far.

Is it that leaders themselves are ignoring the guide lines and research? Now more than ever, there is a plethora of free information out on the internet to answer this question.

So here we go again…

The argument continues and still there is no clear cut answer. Just who has legal ownership over contacts built up in an employees LinkedIn or Facebook account? Is it their personal account or the employers entitlement?

We now see increasing litigation starting to occur between employees and employers over the use of social media in the context of damaging employer reputation and perceived employee misconduct when employees have posted disparaging,…

60% of companies don’t have succession plans in place and yet this article suggests “…

There has been an interesting discussion lately on a Psychometrics Linked In Group. The discussion was begun by Prue Laurence, Director at Psylutions, a workplace psychology consultancy in Melbourne where they are currently conducting a survey about cheating in workplace psychometric tests and people’s attitudes to psych testing.

Cheating on psych tests is a subject that…

When most people think of a garden, they picture a flat piece of ground with plants growing on it. Sure, this is the traditional way of thinking but there are many other options available . . . growing plants on lattice or against a wall (called “espalier”) are two established methods. However, there is a new method that is growing in popularity . . . the vertical garden. It’s ideal for people with small spaces or those who want to maximise every growing surface. Plants are hung almost like…