4 Key Elements of Emotional Intelligence–A Coach’s Perspective
Have you ever interacted with a person with low EQ? If you have, it’s safe to say the interaction may not have been very pleasant or productive. How good are you at adapting your behaviours and leadership styles to create productive interactions? Like to learn more?
15 Attributes of Great Managers
What are some of the attributes a great manager should either have of be working on? Here is a list of 15 attributes that serves as a good starting point—these suggestions are taken from notes that Blanchard coaches have made from what they focus on during coaching calls.
The Coronavirus: An Unexpected Opportunity to Change the Way We Change
The coronavirus pandemic upended our world in a matter of weeks but it has acted like a microscope by magnifying how courageous, curious, agile, and resilient we (individuals and organisations!) can be. It gives us new ways of thinking about how and where work gets done. What are some of the lessons we’re learning? Click here to find out.
Building Your Conversational Capacity
“In our rapidly changing world, everyone's scrambling to figure out how to work together in this new context. How do we work together in a virtual environment? How do we provide valuable service to our customers? What does the future hold, and how do we prepare for it?” Click here to find out.
3 Ways to Meet People Where They Are on New Tasks and Processes
Your goal as a leader if to keep the conversation flowing. That’s the secret to productivity–clear goals, people aligned on performance, and being able to diagnose and then give what is needed to ensure they get the job done. Here are 3 ways to help you get this done.
The Best Way to Show You Care during Difficult Times
The best bosses care about each direct report as a person. They see something the person doesn’t see in themselves. That’s especially important today with everything we are facing in our lives. As a leader, how can you demonstrate this caring behaviour? Click this link to find out.
The Top 5 Characteristics of Servant Leaders
In their academic paper identifying primary characteristics of Servant Leadership, researchers Adam Focht and Michael Ponton share the results of a Delphi study they conducted with scholars in the field of servant leadership. The five most prominent servant leadership characteristics are raised in this blog.
Leading Others in a Disrupted World: 5 Coaching Mindsets
With all of the change and disruption in today’s world, leaders are being asked to lead their teams through new situations never navigated in modern history. It can be overwhelming when everyone is looking to you for the answers. Leaders can take a cue from the coaching world on serving people and meeting them exactly where they are. Here are five things that can help you coach in a challenging time.
Remember to Fly The Airplane – 5 Principles for Leading in a Crisis
Much of what we face as organistaional leaders during the coronavirus pandemic is out of our control. Yet we can prioritise the key issues we need to tackle, decide which options are the best course of action, collaborate with each other effectively, communicate with clarity and purpose to our teams, and the see the job through to completion.
Here are five key principles from Captain Sullenberger’s experience of successfully executing an emergency water landing, that we can all apply when leading in a crisis.
9 Frequently Asked L&D Questions about Creating Learning Journeys
Blanchard solutions architect Britney Cole, in an online session shared three keys to learning journey success. At the end of Cole’s presentation, she held a Q&A session with the L&D professionals in attendance. Here are 9 questions from that session, with Cole’s responses.
Nine Lies About Work with Marcus Buckingham
Marcus Buckingham believes some basic assumptions about work are simply no longer true in today’s business environment. He shares his insights in his latest book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World, coauthored with Ashley Goodall. Click to read blog.
Leading in the New Normal
“Change is an inescapable fact of life—at home and at work,” says bestselling business author Scott Blanchard. “But it’s how we react to change that makes all the difference. We can choose to ignore the change, lament the way things used to be, or deal with the new reality, find some firm ground, and move forward.” Read more!
7 Steps to Virtual Training Success
Venturing into virtual territory without a road map for success can lead to a bumpy and uncertain journey. Although virtual delivery differs from classroom delivery, there are similarities. Click here for a few simple guidelines that will ensure success with your next (or first) virtual venture.
Infographic: Developing and creating successful online learning
Content developers and Learning and Development professionals alike are jumping on the digital learning bandwagon. And with good reason. Click this link to download a highly informative infographic and find out why.
Engaging Your People Through Virtual Learning
Virtual learning has become mainstream and when done effectively, organisations find it can reduce time away from the office and decrease the cost of training by eliminating the need for travel. Studies show virtual learning can also reduce instruction time, save energy, and increase the learners’ retention of the content. To learn more click here.
7 Common Reactions to Change and how to Respond to Them
For L&D professionals, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly increased the pace and importance of creating flexible learning options for people, but may of us have a lot of emotions and assumed constraints around change. In this article we have a change exercise. Interested to learn more?
Managing a Multicultural Team. It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it!
It is easy to confuse leadership style with communication style but did you know that research shows that organisational culture is actually a much stronger driver of leadership behaviours than is country or regional culture. Like to know more click here.
Improving Leadership One Conversation at a Time
Do you have bad communication habits that prevent you from having the types of conversations that bring out the best in your people? If you do, and you want to do something about it, this is for you. Click this link.
Is a Hyper-Connected Work Environment Causing Bad Management Habits?
In today’s extremely busy, always-on work environment, communication is often driven by what needs to get done right now. How can you get productive communications happening between manager and direct reports to develop competence, motivation and confidence? Click this link.
4 Types of Team Conflict—And How to Deal With Each Effectively
Can you differentiate between the different types of conflict teams experience? Do you have a plan for helping the passionate people in your team to move forward? Need some help? Click this link.
Focus on Who, In Addition to What, When Designing Learning Journeys
“Instead of going right into solutioning, it’s best to understand the person being designed for. We’ve been used to designing for stakeholders and sponsors and their vision on the learning journey. Rarely have we had the end user in the room.” What can this mean for learning design?
Where Companies Go Wrong with Learning and Development
Can companies go wrong with Learning and Development?Organisations spent $359 billion globally on training in 2016, but was it worth it? Not when you consider the following: Click this link to read more.
The 1 Factor That Determines How Hard Your Team Works
High performing teams are a joy to watch, aren’t they? What causes some people to fully commit to the team and give their max effort while others don’t? Click this link to find out.
Engineers, Programmers, Scientists: Start Here to Lead a Technical Project Team
Do your engineers, programmers or scientists have a charter? How can you get your experts to agree to one and make it work for your team and organisation? Click this link to read more.
2020 Leadership Development Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities
“There’s a lot to unpack in The Ken Blanchard Companies’ 2020 HR / L&D Trend Survey,” says Scott Blanchard. The challenge, according to Blanchard, is how to identify the leadership, learning, and talent development patterns in the data and discern how those patterns could influence planned leadership development initiatives. Want to read more? Click this link.
3 Ways Coaching Can Help Teams and Work Groups
Sometimes coaches are hired to facilitate team performance. When coaching in a team setting, there are three principle objectives to focus on. Click this link to learn what they are.
2020 HR and L&D Trends: 12 Expert Predictions
HR and L&D experts are already predicting that a changing landscape will require new thinking and strategies for the coming year. Here are 12 of the most recent predictions about changes in the work environment and what’s needed to successfully meet these challenges.
Are You and Enabler Boss? 4 Steps to Developing Your People Instead
Are you regularly asked by members of your team for details on how to perform a task? Do you tell them again and again–or worse do it for them? Click here if you would like to set your people up for success?
Taking a Heart and Head Approach to Integrity
Are you able to create the opportunity for greater integrity in your life? Rather than using your mind to have the last say in all your decisions, can you allow yourself to check in with your heart, your body, and your soul? Would you like to expand the use of all aspects of yourself ? Click this link.
3 Things to do when you are Failing
Have external factors seriously derailed your plans? Do you want it all fixed and gone out of your life? If you are faced with something similar you should be doing these three things. Click this link to find out what they are.
Proving the ROI of Leadership Development
Senior leaders mostly want to know that the money being spent for development initiatives is having a positive impact on the bottom line. There are actions you can take that can make the process of showing the financial impact of training easier. Want to know more? Click this link.
Taking a Top-Down, Bottom-Up Approach to Leadership
Leadership works best as a partnership, with managers and direct reports working together toward achievement of company goals. But most organisations only focus on one half of that partnering equation. Do your direct reports speak the same language as management? Are your direct reports skilled in asking for what they need to succeed? To answer these questions click this link.
7 Tips for Letting Go as a Manager
Are you a leader that recognises the importance of delegation and how it can serve you, but still struggle with letting go. In order to free up space to be more strategic, have a greater impact, be more efficient, and achieve work/life balance, delegating appropriate tasks to others is necessary and even required for managers today. Click this link to start letting go.
Goal Setting, Mental Toughness, and the Manager’s Role
Managers who are effective at goal setting with their people keep two things in mind. The first is “the big picture” and the second,”the short term”. There is a third thing. Know what it is? Click here to find out.
Building Conversational Capacity to Address Conflict in Today’s Work Teams
Team leaders can facilitate constructive, learning-focused dialogue about difficult subjects by balancing candour and curiosity. Click this link to learn how?
New Managers: Are You Having Trouble Letting Go of Old Habits
How have you dealt with moving from a high functioning individual contributor into a management role? The move requires a significant change of focus from the tactical to the strategic. Have you made the shift? Here are some suggestions to help make the move.
Stop Taking on Other People’s Problems—3 Tips from an Executive Coach
Do you take on “monkeys” that aren’t yours? Click this link for a couple of tips that managers can use to help their direct reports deal with their own “monkeys” and solve their own problems and tasks.
Not Feeling Confident on That New Task at Work? 5 Ways Your Manager Can Help
Confidence is a belief in one’s ability to succeed. It comes from within and must be nurtured. To build a direct report’s confidence on a specific task, a manager should follow some simple steps. What steps are these? Click this link to find out.
Suffering from Burnout? 3 Ways to Get Yourself—and Your Team—Back on Track
If much of your work consists of tasks you don’t enjoy doing, you may find yourself getting frustrated and beginning to dislike other things around you. Here are for three things you can do to help move past it.
Leading Effectively from Start-up Growth to Maturity: Identifying the Four Stages of Development
Ken Blanchard believes that senior leaders need to diagnose the development level of their organisation before they consider how to best manage performance. The leader’s role is to diagnose where the organisation is at any given stage. How does this work?
Reduce Turnover with One Simple Management Technique
Any organisation can begin to improve employee engagement by implementing a simple and practical strategy. This one technique will immediately increase the frequency and quality of conversations taking place between managers and direct reports. Make this relation critical.
Don’t Underestimate Your Points of Power at Work—5 Places to Look
An essential mindset for achieving your goals and contributing to the goals of others is recognising and appreciating your power at work. This transformation begins by recognising an important truth about power: not realising our own points of power may be one of our greatest assumed constraints. Identify your strengths.
Resilience at Work—Focus on Thriving, Not Just Surviving
"Resilience at work is about thriving—not just surviving", says David Witt. We need to provide conditions that let people and organisations thrive and flourish with meaningfulness and purpose. Bring out the best in your people.
Leading by Serving—5 Essential Ingredients to Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow
Regardless of their formal title or position, people who want to be great leaders must embrace an attitude of service to others. There are at least five critical ways leaders must serve if they want to be as effective as possible. Click this link to discover what they are.
Don’t Confuse Collaboration with Being Nice: 7 Ways to Promote Healthy Team Debate
For leaders interested in taking some first steps toward improving collaboration in their organisations, here are seven suggestions—for promoting healthy debate in your organisation.
4 Basic Human Needs Leaders Must Meet to Have Engaged Employees
Everyday the spirits of millions of people die at the front door of their workplace. Only 20% of people say they are truly passionate about their work, and the rest are still being paid to under perform and ultimately undermine the effectiveness of your business. What can you do? Here are four basic “needs” that can keep your people passionate and engaged.
Do You Focus on What’s Wrong-or What’s Right?
Managers sometimes have difficulty focusing on both people and results. You don’t have to chose between one or the other. Here are some points to help any leader focus on helping people develop and move forward with planned actions.
4 Questions to Help You Clarify Your Core Values
Have you lost focus? Do you need to get back on track? Are your values being compromised? Perhaps a values identification process can help you with your choices. It’s time to ask yourself a few questions.
4 Key Conversations to Help Your Customer Feel Welcome
Do you fail to make your customers feel welcome? Here are 4 key conversations to have with customers to make them feel welcome and want to come back.
9 Things I Learned from My First Difficult Conversation
Effective leaders must know how to conduct difficult conversations with employees. Because of the common perception that conflict at work is bad, it’s no surprise that so many leaders shy away from having these discussions. Here are 9 ways to help prepare for the experience.
Stop Driving Yourself Crazy Trying to Hold People Accountable
When you drive for results and declare you are holding people accountable for those results, you are also sending the message that you don’t trust people to perform or achieve their goals. What should we be doing instead? Read on and find out. Click this link.
The Power of Clear Expectations–Identifying What and Who
When leaders set clear expectations, outcomes are much more likely to hit the mark. Stating clear expectations, however, is just the start. What else should you be doing? Click this link to find out.
The Curse of Unspoken Expectations – 3 Ways to Improve Teamwork and Collaboration
Unspoken expectations are a curse upon relationships. It’s a surefire way to guarantee you will have conflict and discord that leads to poor teamwork and collaboration in the workplace. Here are 3 ways to improve teamwork and collaboration.
Focus on Competence and Commitment to Improve Productivity
Most people will tell you they are working as hard as they can, says bestselling business author Vicki Halsey. “The problem is, they still aren’t able to keep up with the workload. Today, people need to work smarter, not harder,” says Halsey. To read more click here.
Ethical Behaviour in Leadership
Examples of non-ethical behaviour in business and leadership are all around us; and recent well-publicised ethical breaches in organisations have brought a great deal of attention to the issue of ethical behaviour. How can we work to become ethical leaders? Click this link for some suggestions.
Don’t Confuse Collaboration with Being Nice: 7 Ways to Promote Healthy Team Debate
Do you confuse collaboration with simply getting along or being polite? It’s a common mistake–and one of the most difficult to address. Here are seven ways to encourage healthy workplace debate.
Are You an Excessive Collaborator? 3 Warning Signs to Look for In Your Working Calendar
Wondering if you may be an excessive collaborator? Your calendar can offer some hints. Over the past four months, how many times have you: Click this link to read more.
What Do Workers Want? Better communication with their leader for starters
Employees want communication, a trusting relationship, and clear measurement standards from their immediate supervisor. Leaders can help create the type of environment people are looking for at work. Want some ideas? Click this link.
Leaders: Don’t Let a Little Motivation “Dip” Become a Big Performance Management “Fail”
It’s a common pattern anytime people take on new tasks that require time, persistence, and effort. Initial enthusiasm turns into disillusionment. Take these steps to make sure that this little dip doesn’t turn into a big fail with people quitting the task before accomplishing the goal.
Performance Coaching – If You Wait, it May Be Too Late
If an employee’s performance is poor enough that a coach is called in, it means the manager is in a last ditch effort to save them. If it’s done too late, it does not work. What can we do about this? Click this link for more.
3 Conversations All Managers Need to Master
Managers don’t have enough high quality conversations with their direct reports. This deficiency can have a negative effect on both productivity and morale. Managers can learn to be more effective in their work conversations. Here are three conversations to get started.
3 Ways to Help Managers and Direct Reports Collaborate to Achieve Goals
“Make sure managers and direct reports are taking a collaborative approach to performance,” says Susan Fowler. “It starts with agreed-upon goals.” What does this mean for you in your workplace? Click this link to find out.
Sharing Feedback: 3 Ways to Help Others Improve
As people move up in their career many find they receive less and less meaningful feedback of any kind. Though many say that corrective feedback has helped their career they also say they themselves are resistant to giving it? Is giving corrective feedback a skill worth having? Click this link to find out.
From Performance Management to Contribution Management: 3 Keys to Making it Work
Who wants to judge — or be judged? How can you turn performance management into a positive “How can I help you succeed?” approach? Click here to find out.
When It Comes to Performance Management, Employees Want More, Not Less!
Are your employees wanting more from their leaders than they’re getting? A survey found a gap between what employees desire from their leaders during performance management conversations and what they were receiving. What do they want? Click here to find out.
This TV Show Illustrates The 3 Fundamentals of Effective Performance Management
How can a kid’s cooking show illustrate the three fundamentals of effective performance management: goal setting, coaching, and evaluation? Click this link to find out.
3 Ways to Combat Perfectionism
Most people agree that striving to continually grow and develop and to achieve one’s goals is a desirable trait. Perfectionism, on the other hand, can be a different story. Are you a perfectionist? Want to learn more?
A Coaching Take on the Annual Review
As your year comes to its end there’s an opportunity for a “year in review” assessment. Mary Ellen Sailer suggests we think beyond our work achievements and consider our life achievements. What would we like to be remembered for?
Rethinking Performance Review: A Lesson for China's College Exam
Do performance evaluations overstate or underestimate an individual’s actual contribution with an organisation? Do we over look the subjective nature of measuring performance at work? Click this link to find out.
4 Tips for Mastering the Most Difficult Performance Management Conversations
Do you find feedback conversations challenging? “Redirection” conversations tend to be especially challenging. Here are 4 time-tested, key takeaways you can use to improve your feedback skills.
Performance Review: Feedback Has to Happen More than Once A Year—Here’s One Way to Get Started
Offering feedback only once a year makes it hard to provide people with meaningful or actionable information. Should there be a rethink of this process. Click this link to find out.
Quit Focusing on Accountability and Follow These 5 Steps Instead
Responsibility breeds accountability. How can leaders help their people develop an inherent sense of responsibility? Click this link and check out these 5 steps to get started.
Leaders, Use this Approach for Better Employee Accountability
The most effective leaders realise that leadership is not about them–they are only as good as the people they lead. What have you done to help your people succeed? Click this link for a better approach.
Are You a Serving Leader? A 5-point Checklist
Is the purpose of your leadership to serve—or is your expectation to be served. Would your direct reports identify you as a servant leader? Click this link and consider the checklist.
Innovators—3 ways to invite others to your next big idea
It takes a lot of energy to develop an idea and implement it successfully in an organisation. Innovation also requires collaboration. Here are three ways to innovate and collaborate more effectively.
Your Leadership Training Is Probably Missing These Two Components
It takes a lot of energy to develop an idea and implement it successfully in an organisation. Innovation also requires collaboration. Here are three ways to innovate and collaborate more effectively.
Six Tips for a Work-From-Home Policy That Works
Working from home can provide tremendous benefits to both the employer and the employee. One thing is certain — trust is at the heart of a successful work from home policy. Can a Work-From-Home Policy work for your organisation? Click this link to find out.
3 Activities to Build Virtual Team Spirit
How can you build team spirit when you can’t have a face to face for team building? Click the link for three enjoyable activities to build relationships and team spirit.
