It is generally agreed that two of the largest wasters of time in modern life are email and meetings. Email will be the subject of another blog but first we need to know how to hold an effective meeting. Before we contemplate the meeting we need to stand back and…
Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation & Amortisation has been a popular method of judging a business for many, many years. It is a measure that is used by people who can’t be bothered to understand the business properly and want a quick answer. At a conference Warren Buffet and Charlie…
Increasingly we have choice. Choice in where we go on holiday, choice of what we eat, choice of what colour and spec of car we drive, choice of a gazillion tv channels but choice is the enemy of effectiveness. Having an objective and a priority defeats the enemy of choice…
No matter how open minded we are we can easily get into the habit of looking at things from one perspective, namely ours. that’s why we all need a regular brain and eye transplant. For the avoidance of doubt here I am speaking metaphorically not physically but in order to…
Joshua Becker the writer and presenter of minimalism ideas defines minimalism as “The intentional promotion of the things we most value in life by removing anything that distracts us from it”. In this respect there is a great deal of similarity between minimalism and effectiveness. The Ivy Lee Method https://www.wellsassoc.co.uk/the-ivy-lee-method-how-to-have-an-effective-day/which we…
It’s an old joke. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer, only one but the bulb really has to want to change. This sums up the life of those of us in the effectiveness consultancy game and indeed any other form of consultancy. It is…
The famous quote from Henry Ford “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” tells us a great deal about leadership. Ford identified that the problem was not one of horse speed but of transportation. Not one of efficiency or productivity of the horse.…
In his book The Science Of Self Learning Peter Hollins looks at the future of learning. In the past we were told what to learn. A progression through school and university or college where facts were handed down from on high. Information was difficult to find and alternative views suppressed…
Our post Covid world has highlighted many possible advantages from changing work patterns but does work from home stop leadership development? In a recent article published in the Harvard Business Review entitled What Leadership Development Should Look Like In The Hybrid Era by Julia Birkinshaw, Maya Gudka and Steve Marshall…
Often the two traits are confused but it is important to understand why effective people are skeptics not cynics. A skeptic questions conventional wisdom and challenges the accepted view. Skepticism is a key part of all scientific investigation but has to be tempered with the honesty to acknowledge when the…