Tag Archives: effective communication

Human Resources – A term past its prime

The term “human resources” has been used to describe the people who work for an organisation for decades. However, in recent years, there has been a growing movement to replace the term with more human-centric language. Proponents argue that the term is outdated and does not accurately reflect the value and importance of employees. This article explores the case for retiring the term “human resources” and what actions HR professionals can take to facilitate the change.

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How to use Collective Inquiry to take effective action

Collective Inquiry is the name I use for the process to help people manage complex challenges and identify practical actions they can apply to either resolve or lessen the impact of the challenge.

The process enables the collective wisdom of the participants to be surfaced, which builds trust and facilitates ownership of the eventual actions. Please give it a go and let me know what you think in the comments.

Collective Inquiry is summarised in the following seven steps, each of which are explained in more detail, below:

  1. Get the “right” people in the room
  2. Identify existing challenges and select the one that will create the most significant benefit if resolved or lessened
  3. Consider why the challenge exists
  4. Consider “what if...” scenarios and select the one that will have the most significant positive effect on the challenge
  5. Identify how you will bring your preferred “what if…” scenario to life
  6. Identify actions
  7. Take action

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Cash is King. Clarity is Queen.

In the mid-1990s, I was introduced to the term, “Cash is King”. It means that, in business, you can never forget that accountants and finance rule the day. All of us, no matter where we live and work, exist within an economic reality that is ruled by the mighty dollar.

Everything that we do as leaders, ultimately, will be judged by its economic impact. Yet, I preach Servant Leadership which is about recognising the full potential of people and enabling them to shine.

How does Servant Leadership marry with “Cash is King”?

Read on if you’d like to discover how the two are related.

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Excellence – if not now, when?

Excellence is an exciting topic. Is it about being perfect, never making a mistake? Or is it more about a mindset and set of behaviours?

In this article, I will share five tips that individually, and collectively, will have you achieving excellence more often, than not.

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High-Quality Workplace Conversations Matter

Here’s a formula.

High-quality conversations lead to high-quality decisions, which lead to high quality actions and ultimately, high-quality results and performance. The reverse is also true. Low-quality conversations eventually lead to low-quality results.

Achieving high quality results and performance are worth the effort to learn how to conduct high-quality conversations.

The point of leverage in this model is high quality conversations. But what is a high quality conversation?

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Five actions for living your organisation’s values

One of the most significant challenges that staff struggle with is how to “live” their organisation’s values and behaviours. People often say to me, “I’m sick of ‘hearing’ about the values. No one does anything about them.” I then ask, “Do you believe in the values and behaviours yourself?

A typical response begins with, “Yeah, but…”.

This pattern indicates that the real challenge that staff face is that they don’t know ‘how’ to have conversations about the values with their peers and managers. This article will share five actions of which you can use one or more to increase your contribution to your organisation’s values in a positive, constructive manner.

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What are you not saying to your boss?

One of my executive coaching clients is extremely successful. He regularly receives six-figure bonuses and is constantly approached by head-hunters.Gary Ryan

Earlier this year he was flat. He was frustrated with his boss. Despite his success, he wasn’t sure if his boss had his back or understood what frustrated him.

“Have you told him?” I asked.

“No, not really.” he replied.

“Why not?” I implored.

He had a lot of reasons. The biggest one was that he didn’t want his boss to see him as being paranoid. As we explored this issue, he shared that his frustrations were affecting him at home, and he had been less motivated than usual about his exercise and health program. This issue was affecting his entire life.

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Lessons about mateship from a 7yo

This Sunday it is Father’s Day. When collecting my two youngest sons from school yesterday, my seven-year-old son, affectionately known as ‘D-Man’, was covering a paper bag with a drawing he had just completed in class.

“Dad, you can’t see what’s inside the bag because it has the presents I bought for you from the Father’s Day Stall.”

 “Okay, don’t worry I promise I won’t look.” I said.

He then went on to say, “Dad, when we get home, can you give me ten dollars?

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Workplace safety starts at home

My eldest son is 17 and is eagerly searching for his first car. We have two parameters for his search. The first is his car must have a 5 Star ANCAP Rating, and the second is our budget.

Prior to facilitating a Safety Conference for Programmed with my good friend Jock Macneish in 2011, I would have shared different criteria with you regarding a first car for my son. He was only 11yo at the time so my criteria were somewhat premature, but a story shared by Programmed’s Managing Director Chris Sutherland changed my mindset.

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