54 Shares Leaders have more power than they realize. They can patiently create a climate of creativity or they can crush it in a series of subtle comments and gestures. Their actions send powerful signals. Their responses to suggestions and ideas are deciphered by staff as encouragement or rejection. If you want to crush creativity in your organization and eliminate all the unnecessary bother of innovation then here are ten steps that are guaranteed to succeed. 1. Criticize When you hear a new idea criticize it. Show how smart you are by pointing out... More »
109 Shares Let me give you what might seem a strange piece of advice – be lucky. Sometimes you have good luck and sometimes you have bad luck. But do you have a choice? Can you make your own luck? Dr. Richard Wiseman has studied why some people are lucky and others are not. He advises that there are four main traits that lucky people have that help them to be ‘lucky’. They create, notice, and act upon chance opportunities that come up. They make good decisions using their intuition as well as their... More »
246 Shares Most people and most organisations operate in a comfortable rut that limits their possibilities, their thinking and their achievements. If you want a more interesting life then you have to take some risks. If you want to be more adventurous in your thinking then you should be more adventurous in your activities. Deliberately push yourself out of your routine. Try things that you do not normally try. Do things that you have never done before. Do things that scare you. Here are some ideas for pushing yourself out of your personal rut.... More »
4.7K Shares If you are going for an interview as a prospective employee then you should do some research. Read the job description and requirements carefully. Browse the web site to see how the organization presents itself. Search for news items and comments about the company on news sites and blogs. For the interview itself you should dress smartly and appropriately. It is important to have some questions prepared and here are a few that could really help: 1. What exactly would my day-to-day responsibilities be? It is essential that you clearly understand your... More »
If you work in a large organization and are ambitious for career progression then here are a number of things that you can do to assist your journey. 1. Do your job well. I know that this is stating the obvious but it is the starting point. For promotion it is a necessary but not a sufficient requirement that you perform your current duties diligently. Many people think that this is all they need to do and that the rewards, recognition and promotion will follow. Corporate life is not ‘fair’ in this... More »
155 Shares Nobody plans to become poor and yet a great many people end up poor. Here are some of the best known ways of ensuring a life of penury: 1. ‘We don’t need no education…’ If you drop out of school or fail to achieve a basic education then you will severely restrict your chances of employment. What is more it is difficult to acquire further skills if you lack the basic ones. However this method does not guarantee poverty as there are some exceptional people who, because of sheer hard work or... More »
1.2K Shares How many times have you been bored rigid by conference speakers?How can you make sure that your presentations engage and interest your audience? How can you really get your message across?Here are some great ways to liven up your pitch and avoid boring your audience to tears: 1. Throw away PowerPoint. PowerPoint presentations are the norm but are they the best way to communicate your message?The trouble with them is that they lock you into a straitjacket – you have to follow what is written on the screen.The audience reads the slides... More »
3.2K Shares Very few people can claim that they have achieved all that they are capable of. In the Western world most of us do moderately well. We get an education and a succession of jobs; we have some relationships that work; we are well fed; we avoid penury and destitution. We can take comfort in modest achievements. But for many people there is a nagging feeling that they could have done much, much more with their lives and careers. They know that their talents are mostly undeveloped. So what is that is stopping... More »
18 Shares 1. Have a Vision for Change You cannot expect your team to be innovative if they do not know the direction in which they are headed. Innovation has to have a purpose. It is up to the leader to set the course and give a bearing for the future. You need one overarching statement which defines the direction for the business and which people will readily understand and remember. Great leaders spend time illustrating the vision, the goals and the challenges. They explain to people how their role is crucial in fulfilling... More »
169 Shares So you have written a book and had it published. Congratulations. Now you face the challenge of what to do next. Many authors think that marketing is a job for the publisher so they sit back and wait for the royalties to roll in. You might have a very long wait. The market for books is extremely crowded and most books do not sell well. However, there are a number of things that the author can do that will really help so make the move from writing to marketing and take these... More »
26 Shares We live in a world with information overload. Data, facts, statistics and definitive answers to specific questions are immediately available from search engines on the internet. But people want more than facts. They want understanding. They want meaning. They want context. They want stories. Children ask their parents to tell them stories because they like to fit the pieces of the story into a context they can understand. It is the same with adults. Audiences at conferences do not want to be bombarded with data and figures. They want stories with emotional... More »
311 Shares How can you think of things that no-one else thinks of? The answer is by deliberately taking a different approach to the issue from everyone else. There are dominant ideas in every field. The brilliant thinker purposefully challenges those dominant ideas in order to think innovatively. Albert Szent-Gyorgy, who discovered Vitamin C, said, ‘Genius is seeing what everyone else sees and thinking what no-one else has thought.’ If you can identify the standard viewpoint then survey the situation from a different viewpoint you have an excellent chance of gaining a new insight.... More »
Lateral thinking is a phrase coined by Edward de Bono as a counterpoint to conventional or vertical thinking. In conventional thinking we go forward in a predictable, direct fashion. Lateral thinking involves coming at the problem from new directions – literally from the side. De Bono defines the four main aspects of lateral thinking as follows: The recognition of dominant polarizing ideas. The search for different ways of looking at things. A relaxation of the rigid control of vertical thinking. The use of chance. There are dominant ideas in every walk of... More »
3.5K Shares ...and some not so good ways. We tend to assume that if we work hard and save money then one day we will end up wealthy. This is wishful thinking. We are more likely to end up with some modest but useful savings. If you want to accumulate serious wealth then there a number of approaches you can use and some are much more effective than others. The best ways are as follows: Start your own business and eventually sell it.This is the most effective and proven way to become rich. If... More »
122 Shares A Personal Story I went to a Catholic boys school in Blackpool in the North of England. In my first year in the senior school I was a nerdy kid, with spectacles and short trousers. For one hour a week the class had elocution lessons from an old, portly teacher called Mr Priestley. He had a hard task wrestling with our flat northern vowels and trying to get us to enunciate the Queen’s English. One day he came up to me and said,’ Sloane, I want to put you in for a speaking festival.’ ‘Why... More »
