Earlier this month, I turned 60. Here are 60 life lessons, in no particular order.
How Embracing Limitations Drives Creativity
How to Make 2022 Your Best Year Ever
Why Conflict in a Team is a Good Thing
Following on from my previous post about building trust in a team, I wanted to talk about team conflict. I’m someone who naturally shies away from conflict and doesn’t enjoy getting involved in arguments. I’ve also felt that the best teams are harmonious. Where everyone agrees with each other.
How to Build Trust in a Team
In the past few months, I’ve been running a number of coaching sessions designed to improve team performance. I’ve drawn inspiration from the work of Patrick Lencioni and his classic book ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’. As he says, an ‘Absence of Trust’ is the foundation of all dysfunctional teams. Fix this, and you’ve got a solid foundation. So I thought I’d explore this topic in a bit more detail.
Back to School
So, it’s the 1st of September and the Summer has officially ended. The sun is getting weaker, there’s a chill in the air and the days are shortening. To me, it feels like a new beginning. Much more so than the 1st of January. It feels like the start of a new school year. So, my suggestion is to take the time to start afresh as if you’re heading back to school. Here’s what works for me.
Creating a Business Strategy. The Method and Mindset
How to Express Your Authentic Identity at Work
Should You Follow Your Passion in Your Career?
I had always believed in following your passion at work. Doing what you love and getting paid for it. This for me was the ideal scenario. Occasionally I’d fantasise about my dream job. This usually involved food or sport.
It was a seductive vision. Make a career out of your passion. It’s the passport to true happiness.
How to Make Online Workshops More Engaging
One of the biggest challenges we face in facilitating online workshops is to make sure people stay engaged throughout. It’s so easy for people to switch off, given the amount of time we spend staring at screens nowadays.
So, as a facilitator, how do you make your online workshops more enjoyable and more productive? These are my suggestions.
How to Build Confidence as a Facilitator
How Do You Kick Off a Creative Workshop?
Creative workshops are not like normal business meetings. Where you sit, listen, nod your head and leave. Attendees have to work hard. They’ve got to join in. They’ve got to come up with ideas.
As a facilitator, your challenge is to extract the maximum creativity from the people who attend. It’s important to get people in the right zone, right from the beginning.
Here are some suggestions:
Three More Creative Exercises For Innovation Workshops
In the past, I’ve shared three essential creative exercises for innovation workshops. In case you’re looking for more exercises that will help you generate new ideas, here are three more. They’re just as useful.
How to Develop Your Unique Facilitation Style
I’m in the middle of running an online training programme with facilitators looking to sharpen their approaches to facilitating innovation workshops. Whilst there are common skills we can all learn, it’s important to facilitate your way. To create a style you feel comfortable with. Where you also get the best out of the workshop participants.
How to Stitch Together An Evocative Brand Positioning
There are many different brand positioning models in the world of marketing. In the early days of my old agency Added Value, we created a tool called the ‘Bullseye’. I also remember developing a tool with Unilever which became the famous ‘Brand Key’.
Every brand owner and agency has their own version, which they claim to be unique or proprietary. Of course, it isn’t. In marketing, nothing is. The shape of the boxes might change as do the names, but essentially, it’s the same kind of thing. A positioning model.
How To Prepare For Your First Coaching Session
What's Your Elevator Pitch?
One of the podcasts I enjoy is ‘The Pitch’. It’s a bit like ‘The Dragon’s Den’, but with an American twist. Where budding entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to potential investors. The episodes are short and entertaining. And you hear lots of interesting new ideas.
Getting clarity on your ‘elevator pitch’ is essential for all of us.
Seven Ways to Sharpen Your Research Skills
How 'Walking the Dogs' Helped Jo Malone Conquer New York
I’m a regular listener to the Guy Raz podcast ‘How I Built This’. I listen whilst out walking the streets of Tooting and across the muddy Common with my faithful dog, Stan.
It’s full of uplifting stories of how entrepreneurs created successful businesses.
One episode that I loved was about Jo Malone. How she worked tirelessly from an early age to create her iconic global brand, initially from her house in Bexleyheath, south east London. It’s a story of success against the odds. Click the link below to listen to it.
