Sheep-dips
Is it true that management development doesn’t have to be boring? “Sheep-dip” training, mandatory “top-ups”, corporate refreshers, executive development programmes, regulatory compliance workshops… we’ve probably all experienced a variant of at least one of these at some point. It’s great that organisations are investing in training and developing their managers and leaders, but does […]
Embracing Change – Transcript of Video
Helping employees with embracing change with the “Leave/Bring” Model
Craig Smith introduces the first video blog from Flint Spark Consulting relating to embracing change with the Leave/Bring model.
One of the questions I get asked a lot by my clients is ‘how do I get my team to embrace change, accept that a […]
As the saying goes, “Give a ‘man’ a fish, and you feed ‘him’ for a day; show ‘him’ how to catch fish, and you feed ‘him’ for a lifetime”. But how does this play out when it comes to leading change in your organisation?
A recent article in Fast Company Magazine concluded that outsourcing “change” […]
Leading Bold Change ™
We often get enquiries about “Leading Bold Change ™”… a workshop we delivered for five years under license to Kotter International. We became well known for delivering this programme which is based on the work of John Kotter and in particular his book, “Our Iceberg is Melting”, which Kotter co-authored with Holger […]
Do we really hate work?
A recent article in the New York Times controversially titled “Why you hate work” highlighted the results of a recent study carried out by US Employee Engagement consultancy “The Energy Project” and Harvard Business Review. In the study, carried out in late 2013, more than 12,000 mostly management level employees across […]
Why do they resist change so much?
The most common question that arises during my change workshops with clients is “Why do they resist so much?” We’ve heard the old cliché that “people don’t resist change, they resist being changed” but there is a serious lack of effective advice in this area.
Involvement, solid communications and […]
Your intelligence drops as you move up the hierarchy
Getting promoted to a senior management role apparently lowers your intelligence… your emotional intelligence (EQ) that is.
A recent study by TalentSmart in the US has shown that the level of self-awareness, empathy and social awareness (measures of EQ) of executives falls the higher they get up the organisational […]
Background
Throughout my career as a manager, trainer and a consultant, the tools and models I have found most useful are those that:
Are easy to remember and apply
Make sense intellectually and intuitively
Can be used in a wide range of contexts
Are underpinned by an understanding of human behaviour and motivation
Models such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs […]
An age of information overload
We live in age of information overload. Every day I hear my clients talking about the amount of emails they have to wade through before they can do their “real work”. This is particularly prevalent in larger organisations where everyone is surrounded by information on noticeboards and intranets and in […]
We recently posted a blog called “5 ways to spark life back into your organisation” and these were:
Shape conversations
Get clear on what matters most
Show them the lid of the box
Deal with the “Tough Stuff”
Change behaviours not just processes
In our last blog we looked at the importance of managers taking time to shape conversations to […]
