News & Articles

Welcome to our Useful Articles Blog. Please feel free to post your commentary in response to any item. This blog is moderated, so please allow between 2-5 days for your comments to be published.

Leadership (Orange Paper)

Why would anyone follow you?

You may be an excellent technical manager, but are you an effective role
model for your teams? How many people take their lead from you?

This Orange Paper discusses the relevance of generic leadership models in context with the current uncertain economic climate.

Read more about 'Leadership (Orange Paper)'

Champions

A champion can be anyone. It doesn’t have to be a senior manager or director, and the more champions you have in an organisation, the easier it will be for it to change when required to do so.

Read more about 'Champions'

How to make your business immune to the perils of negative thinking

The Challenge today is not markets, products or services, but people.

As the UK government’s spending strategy kicks in we might reflect on our own approach to the current turbulent times. Whilst some are battening down the hatches others are being opportunists. Whilst some are cutting resources others are planting new seeds.

Read more about 'How to make your business immune to the perils of negative thinking'

Influence vs Information – The Art of Presenting (Orange Paper)

They say information is power, but today information is at everyone’s
fingertips, and power now comes from the ability to influence and engage.

Read more about 'Influence vs Information – The Art of Presenting (Orange Paper)'

Credit-crunch optimism revealed

Are you a free thinker or do you follow the herd?

The media loves a crisis. And because viewer ratings soar during a major catastrophe such as an earthquake, war or credit crunch, the media machine naturally serves its own goal and seeks out the worst it can find. By selecting what to broadcast the media is filtering information to keep as many of us as possible glued to the tellybox. The question is, do you trust it, and are your actions a consequence of the media? Do you follow the herd, or do you filter and think for yourself? Does the wo/man make the journey, or the journey make the wo/man?

Read more about 'Credit-crunch optimism revealed'

The Curse of Instant Gratification

Are you looking for quick-fix solutions to change management? David Molden considers how organisations can ensure their people are wired positively for change.

Read more about 'The Curse of Instant Gratification'

Terminal 5 – How it could have been made to work

Not intending to profit from the misfortunes of others, the debacle of terminal 5 is too tempting to pass over, and the designers of this chaos, BAA, have enough media predators hounding them that it is unlikely this low impact shot will be noticed above all the cries for compensation and retribution.

Read more about 'Terminal 5 – How it could have been made to work'

Terminal 5 - A Manager’s Guide to Employee Engagement

One thing highlighted by the opening of Terminal 5 is employee engagement, or ‘how to achieve instant employee disengagement’. This goes some way to answer the questions the public are demanding. It seems that BAA and BA put all their money on technology to create the ultimate airport experience, and maybe they assumed their people were but a small part of the system, and of lesser importance than the technology. If this is true, and all indications suggest so, it is a foolish and very costly mistake to have made.

Read more about 'Terminal 5 - A Manager’s Guide to Employee Engagement'

Good people management linked to business success

From the publishers of The Personnel Manager’s Yearbook

A new report has delivered compelling evidence to suggest a strong link between effective people management and business success. The result of a two-year study, the report suggests that organisations with a comprehensive approach to people management perform better than those without, indicated by higher profits per employee, higher profit margins and higher productivity. It also identifies 12 core measures that any organisation can track to assess the impact of their people management practices on business performance.

Read more about 'Good people management linked to business success'

How do you compare with your peer group in the success stakes?

Imagine having no one to compare yourself with, except yourself.

What a sense of relief this would bring. We wouldn’t have to beat ourselves up about not performing as well as our colleagues at work. We wouldn’t have to worry about not looking like the alpha male/female with the smartest mind, the most important job role and the biggest pay packet. We wouldn’t have to worry about our bodies not being the youngest, most beautiful and most sexy.

Read more about 'How do you compare with your peer group in the success stakes?'