Jun 07, 2020
Active Listening
Listening skills are part of Professional Communication. Communication is an umbrella term which involves getting a message across to others in such a way that the […]
May 02, 2021
3 Simple tips to master Thinking on Your Feet
Thinking on your feet, especially under pressure, isn’t the luck of the few; it can be learnt by anyone, using some simple techniques. It promotes personal […]
Oct 10, 2020
Customer Service 101’s really can make a difference
Customer Service 101's really can make a difference Although most of us have probably had Customer Service training somewhere in our working lives, we can no […]
Feb 22, 2021
Beyond resilience
Oh no, not another blog on Resilience! I know! I know! Actually, I’d rather like to think of it as “Beyond Resilience” because I’ve always […]
Feb 10, 2021
How REAL is your reality?
In a recent New Scientist article* Dan Jones makes the observation that “… reasoning often starts with established conclusions and works back to find […]
Jan 30, 2021
How adults learn
Reading through an article on Adult Learning* recently, I must confess to thinking that I pretty much had the theory sewn up. You can imagine then, how I felt when I […]
Jan 09, 2021
How to make your New Year goals a reality
It’s the beginning of the year and I have found myself not wanting to set any new personal goals for the year ahead. Why? Because I seldom keep them and then […]
Dec 07, 2020
Are you MAD?
As one of the last blogs of the year, I thought it worth reflecting on whether we are actually MAD or not – yup, whether you’re Making A Difference at your […]
Nov 29, 2020
Pessimist or Realistic Optimist?
Do you ever find yourself being referred to as an optimist and somehow that doesn’t sound like a compliment? Or you find yourself surrounded by pessimists and they tell […]
Nov 09, 2020
What is the price of connectivity?
I’d like to relay an incident that occurred recently, while facilitating a course at New Horizons. I noted that some students seem to be checking on their mobiles quite […]
Oct 26, 2020
Finally, technology proves the benefits of face-to-face interaction
In a fascinating article by Alex “Sandy” Pentland*, entitled Betting on People Power, he shows how research with “wearable computing” at M.I.T. has led to the […]
Oct 14, 2020
Interviewing and avoiding the artful dodger!
When people complain to me that it is so difficult to “get rid of” poor performing people, I often think that it is like saying that you can’t understand why the poor […]
Oct 04, 2020
How to be positive and enthusiastic at work after a long weekend!
Coming back to work after a long weekend, it's HARD! Aaargh! You drag your body out of bed, follow your routine, get to work, and…or, you've got a difficult […]
Sep 15, 2020
What they don't tell you about becoming a manager
Why becoming a Manager can be so Challenging – What they Don’t Tell You! I recently came across a book by Aaron McDaniel called The Young Professional’s Guide to […]
Aug 10, 2020
Common sense is not so common
So said the French philosopher Voltaire, in 1764. Seems it has been the topic of discussion for hundreds of years! Many of us use the phrase “common sense” in regard to […]
Aug 03, 2020
3 punctuation marks you might be using incorrectly
I'm one of those annoying people who really cares about punctuation and the length of sentences that confront me when I read some emails what I have found is either […]
Jul 27, 2020
Stop whinging; it’s boring!
Allow me to begin by saying that I’m not referring to the occasional “bad hair” day whinges; I’m talking about the constant, circular themes of negativity that are […]
Jul 20, 2020
Managing for excellence: An innovative approach to managing performance
In the Harvard Business Review of April 2015, an article entitled Reinventing Performance Management, by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, described Deloitte’s […]
Jul 07, 2020
Honesty at work
Pseudo professionalism in organisations is often the rotten apple in the barrel. For some employees, it’s all about political correctness, sensitivity to others’ […]
Jun 22, 2020
Achieving more from Interpersonal Communication
In Advanced Communication Skills, I often make the point that with interpersonal communications, we should be more strategic in our approach; start with the end in mind. […]
Jun 08, 2020
Managing poor performers when counselling doesn’t help
Australia enjoys a very robust industrial relations system and it cannot be said that that people are indifferent to its existence. It is the subject of much debate by […]
May 27, 2021
Managing Employees through Frequent Casual Feedback
Don’t let the length of this blog fool you! It’s short and sweet with a very powerful message. There are three reasons why frequent, casual feedback is critical to […]
May 11, 2021
Creating “ME” time at work
Our well-being at work is important to stay energised, productive and focused. For some reason though, taking “me” time seems selfish or weird and we just push on […]
Apr 27, 2021
Feeling Connected at Work
Most of us spend more time at work than on any other activity. Many of use spend more time with colleagues than we do with our family! Since it is such a big part of our […]
Apr 13, 2021
The future is here
It’s a Brave, New World! According to TED presenter Perry Timms, “in business, leaders are seeing a revival of values that are more geared towards relationships and […]
Apr 06, 2021
Handling non-performing employees fairly and with common-sense
Reading a recent article by Victoria Bruce, in HC Online (11 Feb 2021), I was struck again, by the continued unfairness experienced by some employees, when it comes to […]
Mar 30, 2021
Who is a bad boss then?
The results of a survey entitled “The Communication Issues That Prevent Effective Leadership,” ( in the Harvard Business Review of 06/2015) were as follows: Not […]
Mar 24, 2021
Why is it so hard to apologise?
How hard is it to apologise? In my various interactions at work, in class and socially, I’m really surprised by how hard some people find it to apologise. Surely, if […]
Mar 18, 2021
Leaping over communication hurdles
We so often see the topic of communication being discussed and dissected. Everyone has an opinion, and many agree that “no one ever communicates well”, and a host of […]
Mar 09, 2021
Do you Kanga?
Just like our marsupial friends in rural Australia, we need to be able to “kanga” at work. What do I mean? Well, having that ability to “bounce back” from […]
Feb 17, 2021
The problem with accepting constructive feedback
Why is it that we are rarely enthusiastic about constructive feedback? Even when it’s helpful! There are three areas that I’d like to consider around this […]
Feb 03, 2021
Office Politics
I had several people ask me what to do about office politics. It’s a thorny issue and it depends very much on the situation at hand. Some typical ones that I’ve come […]
Jan 29, 2021
How can we re-habit Change?
I came across an interesting article by Phillipa Lally, in the Huffington Post (August 9, 2020), where she debunks the myth of habits taking 21 days to form. According […]
Oct 28, 2020
What they don’t tell you about becoming a manager
Why becoming a Manager can be so Challenging – What they Don’t Tell You! I recently came across a book by Aaron McDaniel called The Young Professional’s Guide to […]
Sep 30, 2020
The Aussie Meat Pie of Managing Teams
Everyone who knows me, knows of my food love affair. So I thought, why not combine my love of food, and my work to write this month’s blog. Now the Aussie meat pie is a […]
Sep 02, 2020
Dinosaur or Mega-Soar
Dinosaur mentality or Mega-Soar? I read an article recently which showed how advantageous it is to the economy to keep employing older people, especially the over […]
Aug 05, 2020
When it’s not harassment
I think most employees are only too familiar with the terms “harassment” and “bullying”. These may well be legitimate accusations in the workplace and should be dealt […]
Jul 08, 2020
Staff Retention
In our new HR for Non-HR Managers Course, we cover the very topical question of Staff Retention. So much has been written about this but I find that there are a lack of […]
Jun 24, 2020
The System Prism
Who of you would argue about working in an environment where there were clear lines of communication, greater effectiveness, and more clarity in the processes of the […]
May 13, 2021
How to avoid reinventing the wheel
There’s never enough time, yet we still manage to reinvent the wheel! Recently, I was reminded of the fact that I probably waste a lot of time reinventing the wheel. […]
Apr 29, 2021
Termination is possible
Termination IS possible, despite what you may think. If I’ve heard it once in the training room, I’ve heard it a dozen times: “You just can’t get rid of anyone […]
Apr 01, 2021
Keep calm, stay cool and carry on…or how not to kill your family!
I find having lots of people around me all the time, a very stressful experience. Particularly in my family, everyone is very forthright (or should that read […]
Mar 11, 2021
HR and age discrimination
You can't teach an old dog new tricks! Discrimination, in any form, is considered very harshly by the courts. It will be considered unlawful if the discrimination […]
Mar 04, 2021
HR for Non-HR Managers: Is the HR function necessary?
Do we need a HR function? All managers are expected to manage their staff effectively. Even where there is a HR department, managers are expected to cope with their […]
Feb 25, 2021
Me, Myself and I in the workplace
a.k.a – Self-respect, Self-approval and Self-motivation I grew up in an era when respecting one’s elders, bosses, seniors, the elderly, and so on was the norm; and […]
Feb 11, 2021
How to be positive and enthusiastic at work when you don't feel like it!
You’re probably all familiar with the following scene: It’s Monday morning, you've had a busy/great/late weekend, and now it’s time to go to WORK! Aaargh! You drag […]
Jan 28, 2021
How to make your New Year goals a reality
It’s the beginning of the year and I have found myself not wanting to set any new personal goals for 2015. Why? Because I seldom keep them and then I feel so […]
Dec 17, 2020
Our interpersonal rights and responsibilities in the workplace
As individuals in the workplace, I sense that some staff (for example, those in more junior positions, some employees from different cultural backgrounds, or possibly […]
Nov 26, 2020
Fabulous, fitting feedback
Feedback is sometimes difficult to deliver when it is unpleasant, or makes either or both parties feel uncomfortable. For whatever reason, sometimes the skills are […]
Nov 12, 2020
More haste, less speed
There are three areas that I believe substantiate the saying “more haste, less speed” and they are critical to the effective management of time in our everyday working […]
Oct 15, 2020
Less is more, not more is more
I know that I have sometimes felt unsure of myself, or of my audience’s knowledge, around a particular topic when writing or speaking with them, and have made the fatal […]
Oct 01, 2020
The controversies of performance management systems
The idea of managing an employee’s performance is a formalised way, according to set benchmarks, is highly controversial. Mostly I believe it is poorly understood as a […]
Sep 24, 2020
Eliminating hurdles for effective customer service
My family and I returned via Singapore, after a vacation in Europe. It had been a long flight which started in Athens and we disembarked, and were very tired and […]
Sep 17, 2020
Telling people that their feet smell and other delightful office conversations
She arrives at her desk in the open-plan office, her feet, hot and sweaty. She takes off her shoes, switches on the small fan she’s bought to cool her feet and all […]
Jul 23, 2020
Interviewing and avoiding the artful dodger!
When people complain to me that it is so difficult to “get rid of” poor performing people, I often think that it is like saying that you can’t understand why the poor […]
Jun 04, 2021
Communicating clearly to save time and money
Say what you mean so that the other person also knows what you mean! English is a language of great subtlety, with a rich and nuanced vocabulary. Unfortunately, it is […]
May 21, 2021
On being a Professional Development trainer
There are three aspects to being a trainer that I endorse. While they all deal with engagement of the audience, they vary in their focus. The first concerns learning […]
May 14, 2021
EAs and PAs: Asking your boss the right questions
I was recently reminded that there are some basics of communication, which could stand a bit of revision. I am talking about the quality of questions that we ask, […]
Mar 12, 2021
“Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” said Bullwinkle the trainer
Some of you may remember the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and how the moose keeps trying to draw a rabbit out of his hat but fails; drawing out a lion or a rhino instead. […]
