Historically minded readers may recall the infamous Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution. Public safety was an oxymoron in those bloody and paranoid years, and this so-called committee not surprisingly imploded, with several betraying others, and most ending up on the guillotine. Moving forward a good 200 years, what have we learned about […]
Think before you rant
Corporate psychopaths are always in the news, and with the advent of social media and online forums, some employees have been getting their revenge. A bad boss can be named and shamed in seconds, and while our defamation and libel laws are catching up with the new terrain, lots of people are getting away with […]
A simple approach to career change
You may be just out of school or 60+ wanting a change. It’s an exciting challenge to work out who you are and what will work best for you, but many people find it daunting. Are you lucky to have engineered to get into your career and you love it? Or did you stumble into […]
6 classic tell-tale signs of a bully and what to do about it
You feel sick, but you can’t take any more time off. Your neck hairs hackle while you stare fixedly at a really important email on your screen. You experience that “pretend-there-isn’t-but-there-is” frisson of tension when he or she enters the room. Maybe you have someone in your team you think of as Princess Pushy, or Mr […]
When ‘helpful’ is anything but
We are all familiar with dealing with utilities and services that purport to ‘value’ calls but then keep customers in a queue for long periods. To cap it off, businesses then have the gall to ask what people think of their ‘service’.? Many complaints, if not handled well, will escalate to a new problem. Whether […]
Gut feeling? Warning bells? Someone is cheating and stealing!
Is swindling and cheating at work uncommon? It is a horrible side to office life that hopefully most of us can avoid ever dealing with. But it is not that uncommon, sadly. So what if you work with someone and suspect something is very unethical or illegal about their actions? Do you wait for that awful […]
Snowed under? Are you working hard or hardly working?
An organisation comprises a range of personalities and moving parts somehow working together creating a cohesive output. At every level of every organisation we see room for improvement – perhaps none more so than our very own output. So what is the difference between working hard, and working really effectively? Mental space When you imagine […]
Project management case – dealing with the weak link in the chain
Imagine this – you’ve come into an organisation six months ago, your job is to coordinate a project across multiple organisations and multiple sites. The task is difficult – there are many groups involved that all have different agendas and priorities. You have managed to get buy-in from senior members (much higher up the chain […]
What do you work for?
A few weeks ago I wrote an article that outlined the various motivators for people at work. I love the world of motivation, because there can be such a huge gap between what we do and what we want to do. That missing link is motivation and understanding it provides a great starting point for lasting behaviour […]