After the initial euphoria of that well deserved promotion, one of the few first questions team leaders or managers can be forgiven for asking themselves is how am I going to manage my team and what approach to management should I take?  

There are of course so many different ways of managing people. Different leadership styles will vary in terms of decision making, empowerment and the level of responsibility given to employees, before even taking into account the culture of the organisation. Certain leadership styles work better than others and are more successful when attention is given to individuals, some of whom may benefit more from one style of management than another.

The ability to communicate and get our message across is one of the most critical business communication skills any of us can have. The way in which we communicate with others forms the basis of people’s opinions on who we are and what we stand for, and in a business sense can have a significant impact on our relationships with colleagues and clients alike. 

Obviously we are all individuals, and behave in varying ways when we are communicating, depending on our personality types. It is however, interesting and important to realise that there are ways to adapt our communication styles, changing our behaviour as opposed to our personality, in order to improve our influencing skills and achieve our goals in terms of interaction, persuasion and effective communication.

Why is it that when we are having fun, time flies, yet when we are stuck in traffic or doing something that isn’t quite so enjoyable, time literally crawls by. Which begs the question, is time management possible?

Well the bad news is no, it is isn’t possible to manage time. Time is a constant and however much we may wish for our alarm clock to be one hour out, the reality is that we cannot change time.

During a recent conversation with one of my clients, I was asked what changes I had noticed with regards to how learning is delivered within Organisations.  In other words, how valid is the traditional ‘classroom based learning’ approach?

This thought provoking question led me to the following conclusions:

When it came to designing the introductory video for the home page on my website, I will be the first to admit that the last thing that crossed my mind was to hand the project over to a group of first year students at college.

The notion only came up thanks to a chance meeting with a friend in a business park, who was visiting to check in with a group of students he was sponsoring.  It turns out the students were successfully running the café we were sat in, as part of an enterprise to give them exposure to ‘the real world’ whilst continuing with their studies.

Any experienced facilitators reading this article will be more than familiar with the story of delegates attending workshops without really understanding what it is about, why they have been asked to attend or how they will be expected to apply the learning back in the workplace.  

“I’m here with an open mind” or “I have been told that this will be good for my development… apparently” are all too familiar reasons for attending when asked.  Be honest, we’ve all said it.