What do your leaders need most? September has a habit of arriving faster than anyone expects. Every year, Q3 brings fresh priorities, ambitious targets and renewed energy. It’s also when many organisations start thinking about leadership development. Criticially, they are shaped long before then – when there was time to listen, understand the business, identify what success really looks like …
When people talk about prioritisation, they often mean getting more done.Most of us already know how to make a list or organise a diary, and there are a number of tools and apps to help with that. However, in a world where expectations and demands are every increasing, along with the pace of delivery and change, the real challenge is …
This Men’s Health Week, I wanted to take some time to explore Sustainable vs Unsustainable High Performance. One of the patterns I see most often in executive coaching is this:Many successful men know how to achieve results.They’ve built careers, led teams, grown businesses, and delivered under pressure. They’ve developed the discipline, determination, and resilience needed to succeed. But fewer have …
One of the most powerful mindset shifts isn’t asking:“How do I succeed?” It’s asking: “What would guarantee failure?” That was one of Charles Munger’s most practical pieces of wisdom – approach problems backward. The answers are usually revealing:– avoiding difficult conversations– staying stuck in overwhelm– reacting emotionally– waiting for perfect certainty– protecting ego instead of learning In leadership and performance, …
I often find that when people think of coaching, they imagine a series of 1:1 sessions focussed solely on their own growth. Last week was International Coaching Week, and so I thought this would be a good opportunity to highlight that in today’s workplace, focusing on individual performance alone is rarely enough to move the needle on organisational success. Organisations …
Learning at Work Week celebrates growth and development – but in today’s world, learning can also feel relentless. In our modern “always-on” development culture, we are encouraging employees to consume more learning than ever before, while creating less space to actually process, personalise, retain and apply it. Without giving people the space to reflect and apply information contextually, do we …
As we come to the end of Stress Awareness Month, we have been taking a moment to reflect on the word stress. People say they are stressed, teams say they are under stress, organisations talk about reducing stress. It has so many negative connotations – but one area we often talk about is the importance of considering that there is …
Why is Team Facilitation so important? Research from APQC suggests that knowledge workers lose up to 8 hours a week to ineffective collaboration. Hours are spent managing internal communication, searching for information, or attending meetings that produce little progress. Yet when we speak to clients, they may not recognise this as “wasted time”. Instead, it appears as capable people working …
According to a 2025 CIMA report, 79% of UK SMEs (100 – 249 employees) identified a skills gap in the past 12 months. More than a third of respondents (36%), stated that it was in job performance skills that the gap presented. In other words, the human-centric skills needed to do a job effectively (e.g. communication, decision making, project management, and problem-solving). …
“Am I ready for promotion?” At this time of year many organisations are setting new business and development objectives for staff. And as people prepare for these objective setting discussions, this question about whether we are ready for, or want a promotion, is a question many people consider with a degree of trepidation. But in our experience, this should be considered …
