Most of us don’t want to do a bad job and we have truly good intentions. But sometimes it helps to take a step back.

If you’re doing any of these seven things…… no beating yourself up.

But maybe time to make a few changes?

As always, a journey of 1000 miles starts with one step..

• Keep cancelling those 1-1s because ‘something else came up’ (your team love playing second fiddle to your email list or your unmet deadlines or the latest crisis) whilst spouting those words ‘our people are our greatest asset’;

• Chair meetings with no clear purpose and no clear outcomes. Let the same people speak or just speak yourself, for the whole time, with no input from your team. (They love being talked at). And then arrange another meeting about that meeting. Or ask everyone to share what they are working on this week - why?

• Never explicitly show appreciation - they know you’re pleased with what they do (because mind-reading is one of the behavioural skills you insist on).

• Give va...

I always say the simple things can be the most powerful. 

Why make life complicated? Especially now.

You can do these three things anyplace, anywhere, anytime.

No rocket science required.

One - Understand human behaviour 

We dedicate a fair amount of time to understanding our customers, clients or service-users and their needs.

But what about our colleagues?

You don’t need to be a behavioural psychologist but you do need to understand how people behave if they’re in ‘survival mode’ 

If they’re feeling threatened, fearful or overwhelmed they’ll be operating in ‘fight, flight or freeze’ mode with elevated levels of cortisol and adrenaline. 

This may show up as procrastination or avoidance; extreme perfectionism, over-working or disengagement - or aggression; tearfulness or invisibility.

These are often ‘coping’ mechanisms that our reptilian brain is telling us will ‘keep us safe’. 

What you can do

A simple and non-judgemental ‘tell me how you are finding things generally, right now’ opens the door t...

Last week I wrote about the very real fear of ‘saying it as it is’.

I had my biggest number of responses EVER!

In honesty, I’m not surprised – my Facebook Group members (nearly 1200 now) say this is one of their biggest challenges too.

‘I know I’m a people pleaser’, you said.
‘My manager tells me I’m too soft’
‘I don’t know how to raise this issue’
‘My team want me to sort it but I don’t know where to start’
‘I dread the tears’
‘I know she’ll get aggressive and deny it’
‘Is it a British thing?’ someone asked me?

(I work internationally and would answer ‘no, not necessarily!’ to that question.)

So many of us struggle to work with the tough stuff.

The good news is, I can help you with ALL of this.

If you’d like to get this sorted once and for all then get in touch.

There are a variety of ways I can help which work with your budget and your availability.

Sorry if that sounds rude but one of the mistakes we sometimes make when going into a conversation is to think we should have all the answers – slick, smart, clever answers.

Because, as a leader or manager that’s what you’re paid to do, right?

Wrong.

The best managers I know have mastered the art of asking great questions (and listening REALLY well) in order to get to the best answers.

And let me be clear. This is NOT a set of questions that you can learn by rote and pull out randomly. Oh no.

Now, there are some great questions that can serve many purposes because it’s always good to have a starting point. But we can do so much more than that if we want to get to mastery.

My wonderful coach mentor recently described a really great question as ‘one you would only ever use once’.

Because it only means something to that particular person. You’re using their words as part of your question.

That is really powerful.

It means really listening to the other person’s words rather than p...