Blog

Read time 1 min 40 seconds - An Ironic Blog Post Imagine what life would be like if we never received or responded to an email, if we didn’t face the demands of Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, SLACK, Twitter, Whatsapp et al? How much more time would you have in your day for creative thinking, innovation and focus on what’s really important? I was reading about Julian Dunkerton (co-founder of SuperDry) in the Sunday Times this week and this quote struck me: “I live, breathe and wear Superdry and I am very focused. Part of that discipline is not having a
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Good afternoon all The Greatest Wealth is Health 2016 has been a shocker! Not just for the world of celebrity but for clients and friends alike. Heart attacks (plural), cancer, rare diseases, diabetes and accidents have struck my network of fantastic people. Not every one of them has made it through to the end of the year. And so it brings me back to the challenge that I aim at so many of you (and, as you rightly point out, I need to reflect on myself more often than I care to admit) – what are you doing to improve your self-care,
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By Lily Newman, Morgan James Consulting Okay, so you're feeling the pressure, the targets are getting higher, the budgets are getting lower and there is a general feeling of unrest in the team as change after change is being inflicted from 'on high' (I wonder who lives there?) However, nobody is 'calling it' and addressing the under-current of unrest. Each of you have decided that, if you just 'keep your heads down' and keep on doing your jobs, everything will be okay, won't it? Finally, someone lets off some steam and loses it. Before you know
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Do you ever have those days when you feel like everything is crashing down on you? Those days when you feel like you have the opposite of the Midas touch and everything you touch turns to ****? I know the feeling well! Recently I found myself with a magnetic force field around me that seemed to destroy everything and anything that I touched with a plug attached to it. We have 3 laptops in the office (one of them is only a month old) and every single one of them cowered at my touch and decided to shut down (usually
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Read time 2 minutes 40 I loved this article by David Kerpen, best-selling author and CEO of Likeable Local – it really resonated with me and reminded me of dozens of meetings with CEOs and Managers who felt that they couldn’t connect with people in their team who were hard-wired differently. I have completed many a psychometric test with business leaders and their top teams who have unconsciously hired people in their image – the ‘similar to me’ (STM) effect of the interviewing process where we look for those candidates with a compatible background, education, personality traits and behaviours that
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Read time 6 minutes Thank-you to every one of you for your support, donations and prayers – news of ‘mission accomplished’ – wing walk complete below! After the loss of Kathy Smedley, Act4Africa’s founder in August 2014 after a long and brave battle with cancer, I really thought we should do something to secure the charity’s longevity and honour her incredible vision. Kathy called on a few close friends in the year 2000 when she shared her ideas for setting up a charity and reducing the threat of
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Okay, I’m always banging on about ‘getting rid of the gadgets and distractions’ (and I love the fact that we have no mobile phone reception in my office) but here’s Harvard Business Review on why leaders need to focus their attention on managing their emotions in order to deliver a high quality strategic performance. We are too app addicted (others might say, too ‘appy!’) and with so many of the time saving, labour saving gadgets, texts, tweets, Instagram’s and interruptions from the continuous brrrr of the mobile increasingly high jack our emotional peace and calm, destroying our productivity. The art of
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I recently visited a client who proudly walked me around his factory and introduced me to most of his team. As we walked past one particular member who was diligently working away in the corner, I asked the MD why we hadn’t stopped to talk to him. “Oh that’s Tom, he’s a bit weird and he wouldn’t want to talk to us,” came the reply.  Really? I dug a bit deeper and it turned out that during the 7 years that ‘Tom’ had worked in the factory, he’d never had an appraisal, a one to one or any meaningful interaction
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I know I am renowned for banging on about, ‘creating more leaders, not more followers!’ in your team and, the importance of coaching people to be able to take on more responsibility (without losing accountability). All too often I come across leaders who maintain their position in the company as, ‘the font of all knowledge’ unwilling to share their skills and competence, less they should become less significant in the eyes of their staff or their boss. Only last year I took a call from a woman who had worked her way up through a range of roles in one company
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I’m sat at my desk this morning trying to play catch up after delivering 5 workshops, 2 speeches and 3 coaching sessions in the past 2 weeks. My office is chaos and my inbox is full. Boxes of paper, notes, pens, balloons (what were they for?) a half drunk cup of tea and self-help books – I need a lot of help! – clutter the room. So, I’ve gone against type (never mind eat the frog before breakfast – hopefully he’ll have hopped off by dinner), I’ve read the emails that I want to read, not those that I
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