Oct 10, 2020
Smarter Selling is the Future of Selling
SMARTER EVERYTHING Ever tried managing a sales team full of individuals? Happy days, months, quarters, [...]
Jan 24, 2021
The best facilitators use inclusive communication
Effective communication is an important tool in fostering and promoting an inclusive learning culture. While participating in a learning and working environment, have [...]
Jan 11, 2021
Great workplace trainers need to become great workplace assessors
Workplace trainers who need to become workplace assessors will find this post invaluable. When selecting assessment methods and tools, it is important to take into [...]
Dec 02, 2020
How to avoid the five major concerns of performance appraisals
Performance appraisals (PAs) are not new; they go back centuries. A Chinese philosopher of the 3rd century criticised a rater he felt was biased, claiming he “seldom [...]
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 24, 2020
Seven steps to modifying employee behaviour
As a team leader or manager, one of your primary responsibilities is to get your employees to produce desirable results through specific behaviours. To do this, you have [...]
Oct 17, 2020
Life has many, many stations. Having trouble getting to your next one?
Try using a START goal. As I am writing this post, I am sitting on a train heading to Melbourne. I have a window seat with my back facing the suburbs. This is the [...]
Oct 06, 2020
“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 effectiveness of their employee training programs. Why is this? Upon returning from [...]
Sep 23, 2020
Tools and methods for identifying learning and development needs
For today’s post I want to share with you a range of tools and methods you should consider using when identifying the learning and development needs of your work [...]
Sep 08, 2020
Assertiveness in 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 [...]
Sep 02, 2020
Great managers provide great feedback
One of the ways to ensure workplace goals are achieved is to provide your team members with regular feedback about their work performance. While most of us recognise [...]
Aug 24, 2020
10 steps to becoming a terrific facilitator
Facilitation is both an art and a science. The art is the environment the skilled trainer/facilitator creates, and the science are the subtle practices they use to [...]
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 08, 2020
The four skill levels of facilitation
Facilitative behaviours and skills are essential for anyone who wants to work collaboratively in groups or organisations today. Facilitative skills honour, enhance, [...]
Jun 29, 2020
How to Establish a Creative Workforce
I have always believed the creative workforce is the most motivated workforce. Workplace creativity is best nurtured in a permissive climate, one that encourages the [...]
Jun 20, 2020
Five Dimensions of Corporate Creativity
The word ‘creativity’ has many definitions. One definition is ‘the ability to see in new ways and to make unusual connections that other people miss’. However [...]
May 31, 2021
It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transition
For my Post today I want to discuss three essential keys to delivering successful change. Empathy: The First Key to Successful Change A practical definition of [...]
May 04, 2021
Becoming “Behaviour Intelligent” starts here
For my Post today I want to discuss different behaviour types, the ways different people express their anger, and how to recognise signs of manipulation. Behaviour [...]
Apr 18, 2021
The confident negotiator consistently gets to ‘yes’
Being confident and enthusiastic is a key practice of the successful negotiator Self-confidence is based on the knowledge that you will probably be successful at an [...]
Apr 04, 2021
Master Managers are Master Planners
Plans are what come out of the planning process. Plans are what you intend to do in the future. Before you can develop plans, however, you must set targets – goals or [...]
Mar 14, 2021
The Change Cycle
Integrate the ‘Change Cycle’ into your projects for better user-adoption results There are three phases each of us goes through in accommodating ourselves to any [...]
Mar 02, 2021
The Agreement Frame: Solving Complex Arguments
Use the ‘Agreement Frame’ to work through complex workplace issues. The Agreement Frame can be used in any situation to explain your viewpoint in an [...]
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 [...]
Nov 18, 2020
Why effective leadership is like yogurt
Why effective leadership is like yogurt…you must practice what comes naturally to you. For my post today I want to discuss the differences between the transformational [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 01, 2020
Ineffective goals
Damn straight...leaders that set ineffective goals work 24x7; leaders that set effective goals work 8x5...you choose. Why managers continue to set vague, subjective, [...]
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 [...]
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 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, [...]
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 [...]
Mar 25, 2021
Ten classic business writing mistakes
Writing effective business correspondence does not come easy to all employees. They often lack self-confidence, or fear that what they write will be incorrect, too [...]
Mar 18, 2021
Using cultural networks within organisations to disperse information.
Have you ever wondered how information is communicated in your organisation? In addition, not only how it is communicated but who communicates it, and do they [...]
Feb 04, 2021
The science of presenting - Part 2
Burn this information into your presentation practice In my last post (Science of Presenting (Part 1)), I covered the elements of motivation, utilisation and [...]
Jan 21, 2021
The science of presenting (Part 1)
Burn this information into your presentation practice Why do people attend your presentations and your training courses? And how can you make them more appealing, [...]
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 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 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 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 [...]
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 [...]
