Recent Posts

• Those perfect teams

  01 February 2017

  Today I met with an old friend of mine, who is puzzling over the formation of a team and why he wasn’t quite getting the results that he was looking for; he and his organisation have employed several models and techniques around change and team building as well as role identification etc. One model that had been used to underpin some of the team formation was Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 model Forming, Norming, Storming & Performing for team development.

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• Businesses don't.......

  19 January 2017

  I was out and about in London today and I saw a brilliant sign in a Costa coffee shop, 'businesses don't make coffee, people do'. That message while simple is so effective, not only the product that you see in the shop, but those that grow it thousands of miles away and all those in between that ship it and roast it, the list would go on. The wall in the shop demonstrated how Costa sees its people, pictures of the 'Barista of the year', the farmers and children in a nursery who benefit from the Costa foundation.

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• A valuable lesson

  07 January 2017

  Now this is not very festive in any sense (it’s about the dentist in part!), however I will press on anyway because I thought this was such a valuable lesson.

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• Resolutions a distant memory?

  04 January 2017

  So, another year commences, the days have swung around to January 1st and New Year's Day and now we begin to accelerate into the New Year. If you're lying in the ruins of your resolutions, fear not, all is not lost!

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• Changing your style

  03 March 2015

  I was presenting at a networking group the other day on how communication affects motivation and what can be done to improve it. My talk is based in DISC personality profiling or more accurately their traits, styles and preferences for communication and motivation.

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• We don't all see the world the same way

  27 February 2015

  I find it fascinating that wherever I go or have been I see the concept that 'one size fits all' across virtually any scenario. Unfortunately one size never fits all and to round it off it's never alright on the night! What is it then that makes people in organisations use an approach that cannot possibly fit everyone?

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• I learned a valuable lesson

  24 February 2015

  Recently I undertook to do some moderating work at the FIMA Market Data conference, which I was thoroughly looking forward to; after all I enjoy the speaking to people about people and the effects that they have on businesses in any number of ways. More importantly I have a passion for recognising these things and facilitating some action to help resolve the issues. So my work involved moderating a round table discussion an in-depth interview with three panel members as well as being the chairman for a short segment of the conference.

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• Managing our knowledge

  20 February 2015

  I was asked the other day for some information that is not a secret nor am I the owner of it. I do however have the knowledge that was being requested from someone I thought would have known it already. I am personally someone who has no issue sharing my knowledge for the greater good and gladly gave the information, however I did find it interesting to think about why people might not.

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• Whats in a title

  15 February 2015

  This question could be asked about any number of things such as Executive, Director, Accountant or Manager; we naturally associate titles with roles, however titles can also be attached to functions such as Information Technology, Business Management or Governance and Compliance; these titles can bring their connotations with them and if you consider governance and compliance then this imbues a sense of control, checking and additional burden. It is not therefore surprising that when a new discipline comes along which is called Data Governance that it is not well received;

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• Data the life blood.......

  09 February 2015

  Often referred to as the lifeblood of an organisation, the data is incredibly important to an organisations bottom line and reputation. Lose one and you may lose the other. While this is true for many organisations, many of them continue to treat data as something that is always there, or is always right, after all it's in a system so how can it possibly be wrong!

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