Sorry – I lost a few comments!
August 16, 2010
I just want to apologise to the people who have left comments on one of my blogs in the last week. I hit the wrong button and have deleted them all. I won’t be doing that again!!
Should I get a low-paid job while I wait for a dream/’career’ job to materialise?
A survival job is one you take on while you’re looking for a job in your own area of work. Examples would be supply teaching, short contract work (while the permanent jobholder is off sick, on maternity leave or on secondment) or working in a store or in a call centre.
In the current economic climate, [...]
Redundancy: spare a thought for the survivors…
July 16, 2010
Redundancy is nasty – even if it gives you the push you needed to start afresh. Redundancies in an organisation are also nasty for the survivors. They will often have to deal with:
feeling bad about the people who have been axed – survivor guilt
losing friends and team members
bearing the brunt of resentement and bitterness from people who [...]
Should I be my own boss?
July 12, 2010
If you’re thinking of working for yourself, this article provides insights that may help you to decide.
Working for yourself is a popular dream then the prospect of full-time employment is bleak. Most of us know people who are self-employed, and a life of working when you want to, answering to no one and sitting in [...]
Leadership – ambiguity and resilience
June 21, 2010
As a leader, not only do you have to deal with ambiguity (see my last two posts) but you also have to be resilient and, more importantly, demonstrate and exemplify resilience to your team/people. The two go hand in hand.
I define resilience as ‘bounce-back-ability’, and the competencies (they are all a little different) are something [...]
More thoughts on dealing with ambiguity
May 28, 2010
Two recent examples of people dealing with ambiguity (or not) have struck me recently. The first is a shining example and the second points up the way that the media avoid it in their coverage of important events and issues.
First: the recent problems that we’ve had with the Iceland volcano ash and individuals’ responses to [...]
Dealing with ambiguity
May 26, 2010
It’s hardly surprising in these changing times that tolerating or even thriving in ambiguous situations is a buzz topic in the management and leadership world. There’s a lot of ambiguity about the subject, too. I’m writing and developing coaching activities for it at the moment so have done lots of research. I thought I’d share [...]
What’s the point of talking about things?
March 31, 2010
In the last month, I’ve been asked this most basic of questions by two of my coaching clients. Strangely, no-one has asked it before. Even more strangely, given that I’m a coach and my practice is predicated on the idea that talking about things is beneficial, I didn’t have a pat response. So I’ve been getting my ducks in a row.
First [...]
Are you creative?
March 9, 2010
The difference between being creative and being imaginative is that if you’re creative, you will have created something. It doesn’t have to be Art with a capital A – a painting, a symphony or a novel. It can be a creative report, a flowchart, an action or a way of acting.
Whatever it is, it [...]
More on Charisma
February 7, 2010
OK. Let’s look at it another way. Here am I trying to define charisma – not to find out what it is but to find a way of expressing what I know. By trying to describe it, what I’m doing is unpacking and identifying the complicated strands and shades of meaning that make up my own understanding of it. [...]