There is nothing more inspiring than influencing others.

It is for a reason that great leaders are described as inspirational. Great managers have the capacity to get others to believe in something, to believe that hard work and dedication serves a purpose. Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy argues that the biggest motivator for human beings is finding a reason to do the things we do. It is therefore critical for a great manager to have a management mission, one which guides them and their team in understanding why they are doing the things they do.  Eventually the management mission will become a mission statement, however before this a great manager must embrace the importance of being a leader and the difference they can make. Continue reading “Embracing your management mission” →

No objective is achieved without goal setting and reflecting on progress.

As a manager or freelancer organizing your business goals you will need to achieve many goals, be them: sales targets, increasing team productivity or improving client satisfaction to name but a few. A key component to achieving objectives is visualizing your goals, imagining what that success looks and feels like. Thereafter you should do backward planning, working out what specifically you have to do to achieve a goal by a set time period.  To do backward planning, you need to place your goal at the end with its deadline date and then work backwards, calculating 5-10 sub targets that will be required to be achieved in set moments in order to take you to your final goal. Normally if your target were to be achieved within a year, you would set sub targets to be achieved either every month or second month and should work backwards until arriving back at what you need to do today! Good backward planning is all about influencing your actions you do each and everyday.

Continue reading “Backward Planning: Setting and Reflecting on Goals” →

Great managers create a culture of professional and personal development

A great manager should create a culture of professional and personal development within their team. A culture within which each team member strives to be the very best version of themselves. One where sharpening their saw each and everyday becomes a habit. However when pushing oneself forward it is also important to know where you are at, i.e. knowing in which micro skill or ability area you need to work on most. Continue reading “Professional Development via the learning pyramid” →

Great managers invest and withdraw wisely

Great managers understand that within any successful work relationship is the balancing act of an “emotional bank”. To get the utmost out of your team to achieve both the immediate targets and long term objectives, you will need to invest and withdraw wisely. Staff after all are the most important investors in any project, as without their contributions, goals and targets will never be met. For this reason you must constantly be aware of maintaining balance on the emotional bank scale. Continue reading “Understanding the “emotional bank”” →

Start your day with purpose and reap the benefits

According to a fun exercise i often start my training programmes with the following equals 3 key concepts behind being the best you can be, if you work off: 1=A, 2=B, 3= C etc..:

–11-14-15-23-12-5-4-7-5

–8-1-18-4-23-15-18-11

–1-20-20-9-20-21-4-5

When you have worked out the words, you can then tally the total numbers together and you come to a rather eye opening conclusion of importance, if take 100 is taken to be 100% in terms of importance. I hope you have already worked it out, now that I’m revealing it, but if 100% is connected to Attitude there is nothing more key to ensuring you have that right mindset than starting your day with a success mentality or beginning it with a bang as i like to say. Continue reading “Starting your day with a bang” →

Great managers lead others in how they think

Great managers need not only to lead people in what they do, they also need to lead their team in how they think. It can be argued how positively, and how motivated your team’s mindset is will be one of the biggest influencing factors over whether or not the team reaches the objectives you are leading them to achieve. One of these key influencing mindsets is that of believing that positive change is possible, or even more dramatically put, inevitable if your team is pushing in the same direction. Continue reading “Champion of positive change” →