Would a Book Licence Help You?
Whether a company wants every manager to have access to Face to Face in the Workplace, or a training organisation wants all its delegates to have access to The One to One Toolkit, sometimes we [...]
We’re at the National Career Guidance Show on 14 March
Please do come and visit our stand if you are coming to the National Career Guidance Show at Ricoh Arena, Coventry on 14 March 2019 (9.30am - 3.00pm). We'll be on Stand Five. The [...]
Solution Focused Coaching for Careers Advisers
Careers guidance can be a very rewarding job – you help clients plan their future, giving them with the knowledge and confidence to move forward. Careers Advisers are trained to use a robust armoury [...]
Leadership for Entrepreneurs
Leadership brings challenges whatever the size of the business. One I often see is juggling act of trying to balance the needs of the people below you with the demands of the board. At [...]
Mentoring your Apprentice
Many years ago, I was training a group of rather belligerent transport managers who were unhappy about being told they were mentoring young apprentices. Arms were folded and faces set in stone. Training obviously had [...]
Motivating Others
Motivating others is often a challenge. Some people need more praise and support than others, some are self starters while others always need clear instructions. Then there always seems to be someone on the team [...]
Managing difficult people
A client asked me to run a training day on Managing Difficult People. I asked if there were specific situations she wanted me to cover - after all, there are many varieties of difficult behaviour [...]
Understanding personality type using MBTI
MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) is reputedly the world's most popular personality questionnaire, probably because we can easily grasp the four dimensions it is based on and the language it uses. Of course, it is [...]
Interpersonal Skills – is your message understood?
One of my favourite interpersonal skills exercises is a role play scenario where one person plays Marie, a Sales Manager, another plays Tim, a quiet junior member of staff and a third is the fly [...]
Influencing and Persuading
Influencing and persuasion are key skills in business if we are to meet our goals. “The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and to influence their actions.” said John Hancock, an American Politician, which [...]
Do your one to one meetings work?
Bob arrived on one of my training courses quite disgruntled. He'd been managing a team for years, but a new company policy required him to have a one to one meeting with each person once [...]
Do we still need assertiveness in the workplace?
Let's face it, assertiveness is hard. Even when we know what to say or how to act, chances are that sometimes we're not brave enough to do it, or we don't want to stir up [...]
Emotional Intelligence – do your people have it?
I recently ran a day's training for a large group of senior staff on Emotional Intelligence. As highly skilled professionals, they all had many strengths and were mainly excellent communicators. Nevertheless, they found the space [...]
The Advantage – The Seven Soft Skills You Need
Soft Skills are becoming the essential building blocks of our success. Research increasingly identifies them as critical, especially in the workplace. How can you get your people to reflect on how they act and how [...]
Using Storytelling to Teach Coaching Skills
“Can you do some coaching skills training for our managers? Can you do something different? We’ve done the usual models and we’re bored of them” said the client. I said it was no problem. After [...]
It’s a Nice Day for a Coaching Conversation!
“Can you come and do some training on coaching skills for our managers?” “Sure” I said. “Tell me a bit more about what you want” “Well… we want something a bit different. We’re bored with [...]