How to overcome feeling overwhelmed – A guided tour Feeling overwhelmed?There’s no irony in reading this article if you have 1,000 other things to do. The truth is, you’ve secretly discovered one of the best coping strategies for the overwhelmed. “I’ve never worried about having too much to cope with…” – No one. Ever.We all have those days, some more […]
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Improve your company’s productivity by 30% and create a functional framework for future growth Three questions CEOs often ask themselves… “Am I, as CEO, the bottleneck holding back the company’s progress?” “Where are my energies focused – on Today, Tomorrow or the Future?” “How engaged are my teams and how much energy and focus are they delivering?” And how […]
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From defining self-confidence to explaining confidence coaching… here are my latest thoughts. But first, a little quotation… “Confidence and deference are not mutually exclusive, and it’s usually a lack of deference rather than excess of confidence that gets powerful people into trouble.” – Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer Confidence has proven hard to define over the years. […]
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Strategic Direction The majority of business owners manage their strategic planning process by making annual sales and revenue forecasts towards their financial year end, for one to five years. Is this you? Have you also identified how well the functional areas in your business interact and whether they are appropriately proportioned to the whole? If you […]
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Coaching & Mentoring For the umpteenth time I had yet another one of those frustrating circular conversations with a ‘fellow executive coach’ at the recent EMCC International Coaching and Mentoring Conference in Edinburgh. It went a little like this… FELLOW COACH: “What does CoachDirectors do?” ME: “We provide executive coaches with commercial acumen to businesses. All our coaches […]
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9 Foolproof Ideas to Motivate Your Sales Force Nelson Mandela famously said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” A team is only as good as its leader motivates them to be. If you want to have your employees functioning at their best, then you need to put the right incentives in place and take steps to prevent them […]
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Whilst Mrs May is busy chasing unicorns with her vision of post-Brexit Britain, UK businesses have proven themselves to be rather better at growing an entirely different type of ‘unicorn’. Wherever you stand on Brexit, there’s no denying there are storm clouds ahead. The rumour mill is running overtime and whether we’re facing a transitional period […]
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Customer RetentionThere is an extraordinary variation in the success companies achieve in customer retention. Why is this and does it matter? One need only watch the current challenges faced by the big high street retailers to understand that it does matter. Customers that might buy again are way easier to source than brand new ones and […]
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“Let’s touch base offline, we’ve got some blue sky thinking to run up the flagpole before close of play.” As corporate life stands today, the above business jargon probably wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. Strange to think however that this infestation of ‘management speak’ has its roots in Russian Mysticism.According to the book Business Bullshit by […]
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The power of company culture Company culture is one of the most powerful forces on the planet, according to Daniel Coyle, author of the bestselling book ‘The Culture Code’. Its presence is tangible in successful companies, just as its absence or toxicity is equally clear. He maintains that its impact can be measured on the bottom […]
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“What a great conversation…” I’d hear that phrase often as my parents rescued me from my indifferent babysitter. I didn’t care much for the after-dinner party debrief, but I’d remember being fascinated by the art of the conversation. Oddly though, try as they might, they could never seem to remember what this great conservation had […]
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Human Connection: Are we losing it? As a species, we are hurtling through technology at speeds hitherto unheard of. Our planet is now so small we could circumnavigate it over a bank holiday and talking to people in different time zones is such a common occurrence that we seldom notice we’re doing it. The truth is […]
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Robots taking over We know it’s coming, we’ve been warned repeatedly. Robots are going to be taking over our jobs. Previous predictions have suggested that manual jobs were likely to be the first to go and if you work in manufacturing, logistics or the service industry, now would be a good time to take that course you […]
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For many leaders, a lack of sleep can sometimes be seen as something to take pride in. In the office, people often mention how little sleep they’ve had as if this fact demonstrates their effectiveness, dedication, or ambition. It may seem like the best way to get ahead of the pack is to skip out […]
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