Just back from a really informative 10 days in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
With big help from our collaborator Richard who has 19 years local experience we have begun to find out what is important to businesses in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Seemingly similar challenges that people are having over there - in a different context and culture.
A good example of the importance of stepping into someone else’s world!
Watch this space……
I know Christmas hasn’t even been and gone yet but I am here to talk about “new year resolutions”, or more importantly, setting goals that you can achieve.
Whether it is to do with work, or something personal, we at Noggin are utilizing some NLP techniques in a one-day workshop in January to help you make 2009 your most rewarding yet. A workshop that will enable you to set realistic goals and leave you with empowering techniques to make sure you follow through on your dreams for the year.
“New Year, New You” is taking place in Reading, Berkshire, on Monday 12th January 2009 and costs just £115.
The best investment you can make right now is on yourself. Find out more about this NLP Workshop on our website.
By now, the effect of a complicated sequence of millions of individual events on an international scale (neatly labeled ‘the credit crunch’ to fuel the delusion that it is the result of just one thing) is beginning to reach most of us in some way or another…
I have been an entrepreneur for many years and traded through downturn and recession – but this feels different.
My friend Paul Simpson (a fascinating character who features heavily in my next book) says, “A crisis does not exist in the events themselves, a crisis is created by the reaction to the events…
My experience (for what it’s worth – and take it with ‘a pinch of salt’ because the past tells us little about the future) is that – in adverse market conditions little can be gained from ‘playing it safe’. Do what other people are NOT doing.
If you are feeling the pinch financially you will need to be creative in finding a way to do it on a limited budget (anyone can throw money around and buy creativity – having worked in the creative industry for a decade, I would suggest that true creativity is generating ideas that have value within the commercial parameters of time or money).
Need some inspiration? Give us a call - we can coach you into your most creative mindset and challenge the boundaries of your thinking…
With the Olympics just gone and the start of the new football season I have lately seen a lot of new sporting heroes entering the main stage. In listening to interviews it often becomes obvious that to get to where they are now they have sacrificed many years of their lives. It’s all worth it to them in the end I guess but what if there was a different way of reaching the top in a professional sporting environment?
Arton Baleci is taking a different path - have a look at his project on his website The Beautiful Aim to find out how he does it!
So Mike Ashley has finally shown his cards in the ongoing soap opera at Newcastle United after the departure of Kevin Keegan last week. It’s funny how some of the things we teach about communication are applicable in any context - even premier league football clubs…
I came across a great quote the other day that we now use a lot in our sessions - it goes something like this;
As humans, we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and other people by their actions
The trouble is our intentions are so obvious to ourselves that we rarely communicate them.
A 1600 word retrospective statement of his intentions seems a little late for Mike Ashley at Newcastle. Shame since his intentions were and are so positive for the club. I wonder how the fans would have reacted throughout his ownership off the club if he had taken time to make them clear earlier…..?
Watching the Olympics and hearing so much about performance and coaching it got me wondering about what’s the difference in performance management at work?
I was putting together an invite to an event we are running at the end of the month, promoting our Challenging Conversations training nugget and was wondering how to show how relevant it is given current market conditions. It got me thinking of the 70 odd times we have run the session and how we start it with a couple of cheeky questions:
“So what’s the overall intention in having a conversation about someone’s performance?”
The unamimous answer from approximately 1000 line managers:
“To improve that individual’s performance for the benefit of the business”
Great answer which I’m sure you might agree with. Then we ask the really cheeky question: (more…)
Last Friday I sat enjoying my breakfast at a networking event in the company of a charming lady who runs a chain of newspapers. I listened with interest as she told me that all of her managers were aged between 27 and 35, and had never worked under tough market conditions. They have almost no awareness of the last recession that many of us remember so clearly, and have never needed to develop the time-critical style of management required to ‘catch the worm’ in times of drought.
As a result of this conversation, I have begun to put together a programme for leading and managing in difficult markets. If this is an interesting topic to you right now, please drop me a line, I would love to discuss it further…
I watch a lot of talks, lectures and speeches. Every so often one comes along that blows me away. If you have 20 minutes, check this out. It is well worth the investment of time!
Have you ever noticed how much time is spent attempting to find the one ideal solution for everyone; the one message; the one slogan? This would be great if only people were as similar as we delude ourselves to think. If there is one thing that I would love our clients to take away from working with us it’s that people are not robots.
A man walks into a barber shop and says, “Can you cut my hair like David Beckham?”
The barber says yes, and then goes on to deliver an appalling haircut - half way between a short-back-and-sides and a mullet.
The man says, “David Beckham’s hair looks nothing like this!”
To which the barber replies, “It would do if he came here.”
I heard a great quote last week from a friend who also works with FIRO theory and The Human Element that sums up where alot of people appear to be living their lives
It went something like this:
He described his life as having his foot pressed down hard on the accelerator and his gaze fixed firmly in the rear view mirror…
Wow now there’s a scary thought. It got me thinking about what The Human Element is really about. (more…)