What are the 5 Most Powerful things you do to engage someone to make a change?

March 3rd, 2011 by Martin Smith 2 comments »

I posted the following list in a discussion forum on LinkedIn.

The original question was;

What are the 5 most powerful things you do to engage someone to make a change?

 

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Email – Do’s and Don’ts

January 26th, 2011 by Martin Smith 2 comments »

Some simple tips for using emailSome tips to help you get the best out of emails and avoid some of the pitfalls

 

A simple list of Do’s and Don’ts that might come in handy when using email as a communication tool.

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7 Principles for Leaders in Managing Transitions

January 24th, 2011 by Martin Smith 3 comments »

A simple checklist that will be useful for any leaders or managers who are currently managing transitions or changes within their team or organisation.

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Top Tips for managing change and transition

January 21st, 2011 by Martin Smith 3 comments »

Here is a list of top tips to help you when managing change and transition either in your personal life or your professional life;

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Business Email Communication Tips

January 19th, 2011 by Martin Smith 18 comments »

As many of us use email on a very regular basis for our business I thought that it might be useful to provide some Business Email Communication tips to consider when writing them.

So….. here is a simple way to make sure that when you’re writing emails to anyone that it has the IMPACT that you want it to have;

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Feedback; It’s a gift, you choose what to do with it…….

December 30th, 2010 by Martin Smith 16 comments »

Feedback its a gift, you choose what to do with it

Let me start this blog with a bit of a story (just bear with me here)……

A few years ago we were on holiday with some friends who had a young son and to keep him occupied they had brought along a kit for him to make bracelets. One quiet afternoon he decided to make everyone a friendship bracelet. He spent ages selecting the materials, choosing the design and then making each one. He then took great pride and pleasure in giving each of us our own individual bracelets. Whilst it was a lovely idea, with lots of thought, care and attention going into the making of it, the skills didn’t quite match up to the intention and well… it wasn’t the best bracelet that I have ever seen. However the thought behind it was wonderful and meant a lot to me. Here was someone who had taken the time effort and trouble to think about, make and give me something.

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Organisational Change; Looking after those left behind…

September 28th, 2010 by Martin Smith 3 comments »

Organisational Change - looking after those left behind

 

 

 

In times of organisational re-structuring attention is quite rightly given to those that are being impacted and who are leaving the business due to redundancy. But beware of forgetting to spend time and effort thinking about the people that will remain in the ‘new organisation’ as well, otherwise it could cost you in the long run.

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Performance Management – Managers need to be role models

September 16th, 2010 by Martin Smith 2 comments »

Performance Management - Managers need to be role models

I caught up with my friend the other day, the one who told me of the new team leader who had got off to a shaky start with her team (See my previous blogs post: A New Manager). Well, it transpires that this new team leader is also not that understanding when it comes to Performance Management either. It seems that she still has some way to go in her development as a manager!

 

 

“Be the change you want to see….”

 

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Evaluating Meetings – Meeting Nightmares!

July 23rd, 2010 by Martin Smith 1 comment »

Meetings seem to always be a hot topic of conversation on the web with quite a few comments on Twitter and other platforms about how dire they are etc. All this chatter got me thinking about some of the meetings that I had been in that had been well run and then some of the meetings that had ‘lost there way’ and not been very successful at all. Meetings are expensive and time consuming, yet we don’t often think about how much meetings are actually costing our businesses. How often have you stopped to think about the actual value that your meetings create? Of even if they were actually necessary in the first place. That then led me to start thinking about how we could be Evaluating Meetings from now on?

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Challenging Negative Behaviour

July 13th, 2010 by Martin Smith 7 comments »

Challenging negative behaviour

It is always difficult to tackle negative behaviour in a positive way that corrects the issue without causing resentment and / or damage to the relationship.

The BIFF model is one of the simplest and most effective ways of guiding your approach to the situation that I have come across.

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