Sep 11, 2020
6 Steps to Communicate across your Organisation
6 STEPS TO COMMUNICATING ACROSS YOUR ORGANISATION Communicating effectively is challenging. Communication within an organisation is the foundation for development and […]
Feb 22, 2021
Beyond resilience
Oh no, not another blog on Resilience! I know! I know! Actually, I’d rather like to think of it as “Beyond Resilience” because I’ve always […]
Feb 10, 2021
How REAL is your reality?
In a recent New Scientist article* Dan Jones makes the observation that “… reasoning often starts with established conclusions and works back to find […]
Feb 03, 2021
A good presentation is not about you
A good presentation is prepared, organised and, unlike Dilbert's, well-structured. As a presenter, however, this is not where your focus should be. The […]
Jan 23, 2021
What you need to know to conduct a job interview
Everyone knows that job interviews are stressful: often, however, the interviewer is under more pressure than the candidate! A hiring manager needs to ask the right […]
Jan 09, 2021
How to make your New Year goals a reality
It’s the beginning of the year and I have found myself not wanting to set any new personal goals for the year ahead. Why? Because I seldom keep them and then […]
Dec 16, 2020
Elton got it right
Elton John sang about how hard it is. Many organisations fear it. Some people give it away too freely and meaninglessly, whilst others appear to resolutely avoid it. It […]
Nov 29, 2020
Pessimist or Realistic Optimist?
Do you ever find yourself being referred to as an optimist and somehow that doesn’t sound like a compliment? Or you find yourself surrounded by pessimists and they tell […]
Nov 16, 2020
What does it mean to deliver training and facilitate learning?
The two terms often imply some difference in style and approach. When we talk about delivering training, the emphasis is on the facilitator rather than the […]
Nov 07, 2020
Designing your organisation’s training programs
What is a training program? A training program provides: The basis for a cohesive and integrated learning process by outlining the processes of learning and […]
Oct 26, 2020
Finally, technology proves the benefits of face-to-face interaction
In a fascinating article by Alex “Sandy” Pentland*, entitled Betting on People Power, he shows how research with “wearable computing” at M.I.T. has led to the […]
Oct 19, 2020
Does good design sell itself?
You may be a great designer, but if you can't confidently present your work to clients (and set expectations when they get impatient!) you risk losing […]
Oct 04, 2020
How to be positive and enthusiastic at work after a long weekend!
Coming back to work after a long weekend, it's HARD! Aaargh! You drag your body out of bed, follow your routine, get to work, and…or, you've got a difficult […]
Sep 20, 2020
10 habits of highly effective social sellers (Infographic)
In the words of author and speaker John Maxwell … “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your […]
Sep 13, 2020
3 TED talks on habit
Habits – we all have them, be they positive or negative. Habits are behaviours that have become automatic because we’ve simply done them so many times. We have to be […]
Sep 06, 2020
I am merging traditional and digital selling – And it is working!
It is 2016. Children are born with square eyes and a smartphone glued to their hand. Half of your office is probably still weaning themselves off Pokémon Go. Words like […]
Sep 02, 2020
What makes you healthy can also make you a good Social Seller (Infographic)
In 2009 I became a father for the first time. Two years on when my son, Zen, turned 2, I realised that my poor health was impeding my ability to run around and play with […]
Aug 30, 2020
It is not about 'Traditional' OR 'Social' selling … It is about 'Traditional' AND 'Social' selling
I recently read through some Social Media statistics relevant to Australia. Did you know that nearly 8 million Australians are on LinkedIn, that 5.5 million Australians […]
Aug 22, 2020
Learn to lead and inspire people with these TED Talks
“If you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money. But if they believe what you believe, they'll work for you with blood and sweat […]
Aug 19, 2020
The best leaders develop their followers
The best workplace leaders don’t rescue, or persecute their followers, they develop them! Developing individuals and teams is a continuous cycle of observing […]
Aug 10, 2020
Common sense is not so common
So said the French philosopher Voltaire, in 1764. Seems it has been the topic of discussion for hundreds of years! Many of us use the phrase “common sense” in regard to […]
Feb 17, 2021
The problem with accepting constructive feedback
Why is it that we are rarely enthusiastic about constructive feedback? Even when it’s helpful! There are three areas that I’d like to consider around this […]
Feb 10, 2021
Remember Me? In one way I hope not!
I had to go looking for my degrees the other day to substantiate something for our RTO (Registered Training Organisation) space. Despite my search, I couldn’t find […]
Feb 05, 2021
A big flop that broke the rules and broke the records
Working on my method of opening any book at any page and blindly putting your finger on a word, I thought I may as well do it in a book that is all about ideas. I […]
Jan 29, 2021
How can we re-habit Change?
I came across an interesting article by Phillipa Lally, in the Huffington Post (August 9, 2020), where she debunks the myth of habits taking 21 days to form. According […]
Jan 27, 2021
Taking Responsibility for Your Own Performance
In my experience, I’ve noticed that people who do take responsibility for their own performance possess a number of significant characteristics. They tend to […]
Jan 22, 2021
The importance of a break-even point in budgeting
Budgeting is important for individuals and for business as well. Simply put, a budget is a list of prospective income and expenditure for a given period. It helps you in […]
Jan 20, 2021
All high performing work teams deliver these ten elements
For my post today I want to discuss the elements of a successful team. More broadly the first factor in a successful team is the diversity of skills and […]
Dec 09, 2020
My mate Stevo said it was good and Norm just couldn’t wait his turn!
This blog is about team formation and effectiveness but it starts off at a barbeque we had a few weeks ago for some mates (and spouses) I went to uni with for my […]
Dec 02, 2020
Embedding Organisational Values into Performance Management
Respect, integrity, excellence in service, openness…do these words resonate with you and your organisation? These types of words often appear in organisational […]
Nov 11, 2020
Is your ‘Human Capital’ stock going up or down?
A Customer Service Manager from a medium sized business attending one of my seminars on Managing Multigenerational Teams recently stated: “My manager doesn’t want to […]
Oct 28, 2020
What they don’t tell you about becoming a manager
Why becoming a Manager can be so Challenging – What they Don’t Tell You! I recently came across a book by Aaron McDaniel called The Young Professional’s Guide to […]
Oct 21, 2020
Speak well under pressure
Speak well under pressure by controlling your jitters and by changing your attitude For my post most today I want to share with you some techniques and approaches […]
Oct 14, 2020
Courage? …I’m feeling quietly confident
Anyone that knows me well enough is aware of my passion for rugby, and it was heartening to see the Wallabies demolish the English in a preliminary pool match for two […]
Sep 30, 2020
The Aussie Meat Pie of Managing Teams
Everyone who knows me, knows of my food love affair. So I thought, why not combine my love of food, and my work to write this month’s blog. Now the Aussie meat pie is a […]
Sep 16, 2020
Understanding your customers with 6 questions
As salespeople we all have many opportunities to support our organisation’s business retention and growth strategies. One of the best ways to achieve this is to gain […]
Sep 02, 2020
Dinosaur or Mega-Soar
Dinosaur mentality or Mega-Soar? I read an article recently which showed how advantageous it is to the economy to keep employing older people, especially the over […]
Aug 19, 2020
5-steps to conducting quality feedback sessions
I will hopefully celebrate my 53rd birthday in a few weeks. Thirty eight of those years have been spent in workforces across seven countries. This also means I have […]
Aug 12, 2020
How do you honk?
For anyone in a team, especially those in a Team Leader position, this is an oldie but a goldie! If you already know it, it is Lesson Four that I want to talk about in […]
Jul 29, 2020
Good news…about delivering bad news!
To write well in a business context, you must find ways to relate to your audience and respond to their needs, even when you cannot give them what they want. If you […]
Jul 22, 2020
Extroverts versus Introverts; does it matter?
I just saw an interesting TED talk on Introverts and Extroverts presented by Susan Cain who, originally a finance lawyer and as an introvert herself, has written a book […]
Jul 15, 2020
What Sort of Leader are You?
Our leadership style tends to be dependent on both the situation and the people we lead. We’ll take a closer look at three main styles: Autocratic, Democratic, and […]
Jul 08, 2020
Staff Retention
In our new HR for Non-HR Managers Course, we cover the very topical question of Staff Retention. So much has been written about this but I find that there are a lack of […]
Jul 01, 2020
Ineffective goals
Damn straight…leaders that set ineffective goals work 24×7; leaders that set effective goals work 8×5…you choose. Why managers continue to set vague, subjective, […]
Jun 17, 2020
How to give a killer presentation or…not let your presentation kill you!
In preparing for a recent training I gave on ‘Conducting Webinars,’ I came across a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article written by TED Talks’ Curator, Chris Anderson […]
Jun 10, 2020
Different communication styles – the best communicators know this, so should you (Part 2)
In my last blog post of this two part series, I explained the 4 primary communication styles taken from New Horizons' Advanced Interpersonal Communication course. As […]
Jun 03, 2021
Who does what in managing change?
To ensure your strategic change initiatives have a greater chance of implementation and success, following some standard roles and guidelines may provide you with some […]
May 27, 2021
The science of presenting (Part 3)
This is the third and final part of the Science of Presenting series. Make sure you read parts one and two. I hope you enjoy them. Logic The audience or learner must […]
May 20, 2021
The art of thinking clearly
In one of my previous blog posts, I wrote about how in a recent training I was conducting on influence and persuasion, one of the participants asked me if I could […]
May 13, 2021
How to avoid reinventing the wheel
There’s never enough time, yet we still manage to reinvent the wheel! Recently, I was reminded of the fact that I probably waste a lot of time reinventing the wheel. […]
May 06, 2021
Different communication styles, Part 1 – the best communicators know this, so should you.
One area I spend a lot of time teaching students is different communication styles. I discuss the importance of knowing their communication style, its effect on others, […]
May 01, 2021
Are You a Smarter Buyer?
In the book Smarter Selling by Keith Dugdale and David Lambert, they talk about the three types of buyer: Budget Buyers, Deal Hunters and Value Buyers. The first group […]
Apr 29, 2021
Termination is possible
Termination IS possible, despite what you may think. If I’ve heard it once in the training room, I’ve heard it a dozen times: “You just can’t get rid of anyone […]
Apr 22, 2021
The Moth: a bright idea that can help you influence better
In a recent training session I was conducting on Effective Influencing and Persuasion, one of the participants asked me if I could recommend a book on storytelling so […]
Apr 08, 2021
“How was the training?”…“Yeah good thanks, now what’s for lunch?”
So many organisations use the above ‘line’ as their sole way of evaluating the learning effectiveness of their employee training programs. Why is this? Upon returning […]
Apr 01, 2021
Keep calm, stay cool and carry on…or how not to kill your family!
I find having lots of people around me all the time, a very stressful experience. Particularly in my family, everyone is very forthright (or should that read […]
Mar 11, 2021
HR and age discrimination
You can't teach an old dog new tricks! Discrimination, in any form, is considered very harshly by the courts. It will be considered unlawful if the discrimination […]
Mar 04, 2021
HR for Non-HR Managers: Is the HR function necessary?
Do we need a HR function? All managers are expected to manage their staff effectively. Even where there is a HR department, managers are expected to cope with their […]
Feb 11, 2021
How to be positive and enthusiastic at work when you don't feel like it!
You’re probably all familiar with the following scene: It’s Monday morning, you've had a busy/great/late weekend, and now it’s time to go to WORK! Aaargh! You drag […]
Jan 28, 2021
How to make your New Year goals a reality
It’s the beginning of the year and I have found myself not wanting to set any new personal goals for 2015. Why? Because I seldom keep them and then I feel so […]
Jan 14, 2021
Rich dad’s antidote for distractions
Ever have a day when you did lots of ‘stuff’ and you are worn out but you didn’t get around to achieving the big tasks you intended to? In a previous blog post, I was […]
Jan 07, 2021
The five stages of competence
There are five stages of competence that every leader, change leader, manager and workplace coach must know. For my article today, I want share with you a terrific […]
Dec 17, 2020
Our interpersonal rights and responsibilities in the workplace
As individuals in the workplace, I sense that some staff (for example, those in more junior positions, some employees from different cultural backgrounds, or possibly […]
Dec 10, 2020
Fruitcakes and lines in the sand
I know I’m biased but my mum makes a fantastic Christmas cake; really moist, full of fruit and enough rum to sink a pirate-ship. Every year she makes eight, gives one to […]
Dec 03, 2020
Here’s how situational leaders spend more time watching sunsets than watching their people
Situational leadership is a leadership model developed by Hersey and Blanchard. A situational leader is one who can adopt different leadership styles depending on the […]
Nov 26, 2020
Fabulous, fitting feedback
Feedback is sometimes difficult to deliver when it is unpleasant, or makes either or both parties feel uncomfortable. For whatever reason, sometimes the skills are […]
Nov 19, 2020
Deliver successful organisational transformation
Today’s post will help anybody in the workplace who is faced with the challenge of changing the thinking, attitude, behaviour, approach, and ultimately, the performance […]
Nov 12, 2020
More haste, less speed
There are three areas that I believe substantiate the saying “more haste, less speed” and they are critical to the effective management of time in our everyday working […]
Nov 05, 2020
Killer Fillers
In the past three weeks, I have had two separate people in training who, on numerous occasions, said “to be honest” in front of what they were about to share. Both were […]
Oct 29, 2020
Taking the emotion out of feedback
One of the greatest challenges managers face is how to give constructive feedback that results in their employee feeling positive and motivated to change their behaviour […]
Oct 22, 2020
‘Pure’ listen your way to the top
By the time you read this blog I would have celebrated my fifty-second birthday. I always take the opportunity on my special day to take an extended pause and reflect […]
Oct 15, 2020
Less is more, not more is more
I know that I have sometimes felt unsure of myself, or of my audience’s knowledge, around a particular topic when writing or speaking with them, and have made the fatal […]
Oct 08, 2020
6 tips to help master the art of influence
Are you having trouble getting your ideas for change across to your customers or those within your organisation who have the power to influence and make things […]
Sep 24, 2020
Eliminating hurdles for effective customer service
My family and I returned via Singapore, after a vacation in Europe. It had been a long flight which started in Athens and we disembarked, and were very tired and […]
Sep 17, 2020
Telling people that their feet smell and other delightful office conversations
She arrives at her desk in the open-plan office, her feet, hot and sweaty. She takes off her shoes, switches on the small fan she’s bought to cool her feet and all […]
Sep 08, 2020
I Know!
When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had […]
Sep 03, 2020
The Silver Rule of Negotiation
It may be a scam but tourists in Cairo are told that the scents that are used in Parisienne perfumes come from the rare flowers of the desert and are extracted in Egypt […]
Aug 27, 2020
Communication Across Generations – Quiz
To recap from one of my blog posts many months ago, I briefly explained 4 key generations that we often find within the workplace: 1. The Silent Generation […]
Aug 20, 2020
Never, ever let individual power bring your team down
We are all born alone, and sadly we often die alone. What’s interesting is that in between the two bookends of our life we spend the majority of it in teams. Family […]
Aug 13, 2020
4 techniques to improve your active listening skills
Why is it so difficult to stay focused and actively engaged in some conversations? One of the main reasons is that we listen faster than we talk. In today's […]
Aug 06, 2020
MH-17 and words
My brother is a journalist, working and living in Russia. He does proffer a different view on what is happening in the Ukraine than the stories we get over here. […]
Jul 30, 2020
Assertiveness – From theory to practice
I spend a lot of my time conducting communication skills programs for employees from a range of different industries. The employees are different in as many ways as they […]
Jul 23, 2020
Interviewing and avoiding the artful dodger!
When people complain to me that it is so difficult to “get rid of” poor performing people, I often think that it is like saying that you can’t understand why the poor […]
Jul 16, 2020
Becoming a great workplace trainer starts with three words (Part 3)
To conclude this series (click here to read Part 1 and Part 2), I want to discuss the importance of ‘commitment’ in the context of becoming a great workplace […]
Jul 09, 2020
Ace your next presentation with lessons from these tennis pros
Nineteen year old Australian tennis player, Nick Kyrgios, has been lauded in recent times for his confident win at Wimbledon over world number one, Rafael Nadal. Kyrgios […]
Jul 02, 2020
A truly botched presentation…but Samsung are happy!
If we strip back the word “presentations,” we get to the verb to present or to give, and of course, that is what we do in a presentation; we give […]
Jun 18, 2020
Life has many, many stations. Having trouble getting to your next station?
Try using a START goal. As I am writing this post on a cold winter’s day, I am sitting on a train heading to Melbourne. I have a window seat with my back facing […]
Jun 11, 2020
The seven keys to develop your personal effectiveness
How personally effective are you? How do you measure your level of personal effectiveness? How do others rate your personal effectiveness? These are killer […]
Jun 04, 2021
Communicating clearly to save time and money
Say what you mean so that the other person also knows what you mean! English is a language of great subtlety, with a rich and nuanced vocabulary. Unfortunately, it is […]
May 28, 2021
Becoming a great workplace trainer starts with three words (Part 2)
In part 1 of this blog post series, I discussed the importance of structuring your training session, no matter the duration of it. A well planned introduction that […]
May 21, 2021
On being a Professional Development trainer
There are three aspects to being a trainer that I endorse. While they all deal with engagement of the audience, they vary in their focus. The first concerns learning […]
May 14, 2021
EAs and PAs: Asking your boss the right questions
I was recently reminded that there are some basics of communication, which could stand a bit of revision. I am talking about the quality of questions that we ask, […]
May 09, 2021
Becoming a great workplace trainer starts with three words (Part 1)
Many, many, many years ago I attended my first ‘Train the Trainer’ course in Hawthorn, Victoria. Becoming a great workplace trainer starts with three […]
Apr 23, 2021
A new manager’s first conversations
To those who have just been promoted to a new managerial role, congratulations! For those of us who have been in such roles for some time, I’m sure we all have some […]
Apr 16, 2021
They won’t take their shoes off!
My partner, who is a family lawyer, says, “Tim, you can’t teach people empathy! They either have it or they don’t.” My response to her is that unless they are a […]
Apr 11, 2021
Strategies to sell human services (Part 2)
In my previous blog post, I spoke about the challenges with selling human services and the need to create opportunities for strong, long-term, mutually beneficial […]
Apr 03, 2021
Anatomy of a coach
Depending on your point of view, I had the good fortune or misfortune of going to a boys’ boarding school, where sport was a big deal. Lucky for me, I was okay at it and […]
Mar 26, 2021
And if you tell that to the young folks today…
“And if you tell that to the young folks today, they won’t believe you.” It’s the sign off from one of the most quoted Monty Python sketches ever – The Four […]
Mar 19, 2021
Think Leader. Think Legacy. Think Auntie Marg.
For my first blog post, I have chosen to share a personal story on leadership, legacy and family. My family and I recently attended the 70th birthday celebration of […]
Mar 12, 2021
“Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” said Bullwinkle the trainer
Some of you may remember the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and how the moose keeps trying to draw a rabbit out of his hat but fails; drawing out a lion or a rhino instead. […]
Jan 15, 2021
The challenges with selling human services
(Part 1)
Has the time come for smaller organisations operating within human services to take a leaf from the pages of the private sector’s strategic approach to business survival […]
