I’ve recently been working with a group of managers who are finding it difficult to encourage their staff to evaluate their working processes in order to generate ideas for improvement (asking the question ‘what improvements can you think of’ was getting them nowhere fast).
My view is that it’s useful for staff to have a more [...]

I’m often asked by managers how they can make their performance review or appraisal meetings more of a two-way discussion, how they can encourage their staff to be more fully part of the meeting.
A start point is to give your staff member time and support in preparing for the meeting. How?
Take a look at this [...]

When I work with delegates on my ‘Managing Upwards’ programme, I’m often asked ‘how can I get my boss to coach me more often (or at all)?’
My advice is to take control of the ‘coaching process’ – to make it easy for your manager to provide the coaching you need. Here’s some ideas on how [...]

A story
Some years ago I worked with the MD of a commercial publishing business. I had spent a day facilitating a business planning session with him and his senior management team. At the very end of the day, and apropos of nothing as far as I could see, he did the following:
1. Pushed back his [...]

There comes a time in every manager’s life when they need to tell their staff that the way they are working isn’t, well, working. They may need to explain that they need their staff to be ‘more effective team players’ or ‘more receptive to change’. The challenge is in how to explain to those staff [...]

Research shows that ‘appreciation for a job well done’ consistently ranks highly as a motivator in employee surveys. Yet research also shows that most people don’t feel they get enough praise.
So what’s going on?
Putting aside the fact that it’s likely that some of our survey participants feel they should be praised for turning up every [...]

I was recently talking to a manager who was complaining that some of her staff had a tendency to accept work from her which, it later transpired, they did not have the time to do (or at least to the deadline she had set). She just couldn’t understand why her staff didn’t seem to have [...]

We all know what a powerful tool listening is. We know that when people feel listened to they also feel valued, respected and engaged. Yet, I’m often told by the clients I work with that they don’t feel listened to at work.

I’ve recently been working with Sara, a small business owner, helping her to develop a more focussed and structured approach to managing her staff’s performance.
Here she talks about her experience of working with me, the impact it has had on her staff’s performance and, importantly, the impact it has had on her confidence and wellbeing.
Over [...]

Have your expectations of your staff changed recently? Do you need something different from the people you manage? Do they know what this ‘different’ is?
What we want from the people we manage can change on a regular basis. These changes come about when the needs of the business change, the customer requirements change or the [...]