Most Recent Blog Posts
Brain Hover: The Secret to the Perfect Workplace
Let’s start with a précis of the difference between talents and skills. Skills is all that stuff that you learn how to do. You can learn how to be a doctor, for instance, or an engineer or a catwalk model.But talents operate in completely different areas....
Pastors and Talents
Pity the vicar, who only joined the church to share the gospel yet who now runs an enterprise as complicated as a small/medium-sized business.First there’s the spiritual stuff. Sermons to be written and delivered. Sick to be visited and empathised with....
How 2 colleagues re-booted their relationship.
True story. Becky and Sandra worked together in a busy finance team. Their chairs are back to back and they work on related stuff so they need to communicate. But they didn’t get on.Becky was always turning around saying, ‘Sandra, I need to talk to you...
How to Manage Doers – Here’s a Strategy
Doers are the backroom heroes of the company. They don’t sell, they don’t strategise and they’re not brilliant with relationships. They don’t, therefore, really stand out. Yet without them doing and building and getting stuff done, the org falls apart.But...
Why are some colleagues awkward? There’s a reason.
Think your colleague is being awkward? No, they’re just being true to their talent.Around half the population are ‘doers’. These are people who like to do, to make, to build. They like to have a deep reservoir of knowledge about their work, just in case...
Grow your company without increasing headcount.
Imagine a company where everyone is fully engaged because they’re doing the work they were made for. Where growth comes effortlessly without the usual nails and claws. Where teams work like oiled machines, comfortably going at cruise speed all day without...
Why career destruction will continue
We think about changing our job 16 times a year on average. And we actually change employers every 5 years.What’s gone wrong?Instability like this is a disaster for personal lives and employers alike. It demonstrates that we have no idea how to scan people...
Hot Desking is Stressing Half the Population
Dave is an extravert. Angela is an introvert. The company tells them, ‘We’re going to shut down much of our desk space at Head Office and encourage everyone to work from home when they can. This will save money on desks, IT, office rent etc. It will be...
Putting The Brains in the Right Place in the Team
Based on a true event. Only the people and organisation names have been changed. Brenda was stressed. With a Masters from Yale and a careerbackground in finance in a New York bank, she was hardly short of intellectual gunnery. Yet having taken a salary cut...
Saving the Leadership Team
Based on a real-life situation. Only the names have been changed.Jason was the classic sales director, sharply dressed, eternally upbeat and with a peculiar radar for where deals are to be found. He also displayed another talent not always seen in those...
The Painless Way to Improve Your Leadership Style
For some, leadership comes naturally. These people effortlessly bend others to their will, they are born to command. ‘Here’s the strategy people, let’s go execute.’ This is the archetype of the leader as an out-in-front force of nature, bursting with...
First European outing for ‘The Game’ – with some very exciting results.
The Game With A Serious PurposeThis kinaesthetic approach to team self-discovery and efficiency improvement has proved itself again, this time in the UK.The Method Teaming Game is a hands-on encounter around a table where team members learn more about...
Get Brainy About Recruitment
Iain McGilchrist: our brains like good teamwork.Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to challenge and change existing processes?"We can be better, faster, more accurate in our recruitment," you say.Only to be faced with a million counters - mostly...
Improve Team Efficiency in Three Months
Most business teams work at about 32% efficiency, according to research by Gallup, Deloitte et al. It’s not because they’re lazy, it’s because people are often given tasks they’re not naturally good at. Then they’re asked to work with other people who are...
The People Solution to Innovation, Productivity and Higher Profits
Unless your company has been unbelievably lucky, few of your people are in the right seats. According to Gallup, Deloitte and others, we spend only 30% of our time doing the work that our brains are hardwired for. That means that 70% of the time we are...
We live in a barbarian employment age. Why is there no outrage?
The analogy of the slow-boiled frog is the one that comes to mind. Businesses have always paid top salaries and always reaped only 40% of the potential (according to Gallup and many others). It’s expected. Why leap out of the pan when it’s always been...
Everyone deserves to be in a team that works.
In the old days, new company employees joined their new team fully expecting it to be the greener grass they had always hoped for. The first day was great. There were smiles from everyone, lunch with the team leader and a handshake with the big boss on the...
You grow teams that work and you reap a dynamic culture. But what do you get after that?
What is the point of having a culture where everyone comes to work energised, team members work together like a swiss watch and the atmosphere is electric 25 hours a day – if it doesn’t impact business performance? Obviously the answer is no point at all....
To build a great culture, first build teams that work.
Talent loves to work with talent. There is no greater excitement for someone bursting with talent (which is all of us) than to come to work knowing you are in a team where everybody is doing a job they love and doing it well. This is the essence of teams...
Do you suffer from a poverty of talent?
How many of the people you hired deliver on the potential they showed at interview? Managers spend a lot of their time recruiting to fill vacancies in their teams. Yet they frequently complain that the highly accomplished people they hired never seem to...