When I receive an “invitation to tender” or a “request for proposal” for a management development programme I get quite excited. Here’s another opportunity to help an organisation really transform the capability of it’s operational managers, inject more leadership behaviour, unleash a more inspired management population. So, I set about thinking about all those necessary [...]

Running team building events never grows tiresome for me and I can’t see it ever being the case. You see, I believe, done in the right way it is still the fastest, most beneficial way to experience real shifts in attitude and performance. A fair number of years ago I learned about David Kolb and [...]

I’ve spent the last few years fairly well engaged in the various social networking sites and have been using live chat programmes for even longer. There is no doubt that generally people like to know other people’s stuff and keep in touch, however strong or loose the connection might be.  The explosion of sites such [...]

I’m a southerner born and bred but I’ve been living in the Midlands for around 8 years now and have become very fond of the place I now call home.  So what makes it such a great home and secondly, what makes it great for team building? As a home the midlands offers lots of [...]

If you think your performance appraisal process leaves something to be desired and probably sits somewhere between “never done” and “done under duress” just take a look at a few Personal Development Plans! Or should I say “pointless de-motivating plans”.     Creating A PDP That Achieves Something   So, by our title you can [...]

  Leadership development is one of the most popular learning and development topics within the training industry and has been for some time. Leadership development can be a hard area to address if employees recognise the need instead of the leaders themselves. After all telling a senior figure in any organisation that they need further [...]

People are rarely incompetent or useless.  Most of the time they are just in the wrong job and aren’t playing to their strengths.  So what fool would land themselves the wrong job then!  How surprising is it then, of over 3000 people surveyed, more than 65% said they were in their job more by accident [...]

It’s great that in all this doom and gloom of recession, job cuts, bankruptcy and MP’s expenses there are still companies who continue to develop their people. After all, we’ll need all these well trained staff and fantastic managers and leaders when the upturn comes! So, the other week I was running a leadership programme [...]

I’ve been in the business of developing teams for a fair number of years now and I am pretty sure I’ve seen most forms of team development, team building and whatever else you want to call it.  But it’s a very true saying that there are many ways to skin a cat (not that I’d [...]

 Innovation Happens at the Edge  By Tom Stevens  (c)2007  In a knowledge-driven economy, chances are greater than ever that the value you offer comes from making use of expertise. Conventional wisdom will tell you that you get the best from your expertise by deeper learning your field, by keeping up with new developments and understanding [...]