6th December 2021

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61% of our time is spent on ‘work about work’*; the work that gets done to facilitate the work that actually adds value. This video looks at 3 tips for reducing the time spent on: updating others, updating statuses, internal meetings, searching for information, asking for information, duplicated work…

* according to a study by Asana (https://asana.com/resources/anatomy-of-work)

61% seems pretty high to me but whatever your number is it’s an opportunity to get more out of what you already have if you reduce it.

Nowadays there are so many tools available, many of them with free versions, that with a little effort will help you trim that time.

If you add up the minutes of ‘work about work’ and multiply it by your average salary you might have the potential to save £££.

Certainly many of the business I work with, save a lot of time, money and effort by implementing the right mix of automation, organisation and integration.

29th November 2021

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Coming up with better ideas is easy in comparison to implementing them. This video looks at one quick tip for getting people to change faster.

22nd November 2021

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2022 strategic planning, yep it’s that time again… This video shares one question you don’t want to miss off your list.

❓What are you top tips for 2022 strategic planning?
❓Are you all set or not even got the ball rolling yet?

15th November 2021

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Fast or comprehensive? Often we are faced with a trade off – solving the whole problem may take too long. This video shares a tip for impacting problems quickly and without high cost or effort, while you work on the full solution.

Every incremental improvement makes a difference.

8th November 2021

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Getting other people to do stuff – as soon as we work in a team that is greater than 1, we need to master this skill. Traditionally we have 2 options carrot or stick – this video looks at an alternative.

The stick approach can feel harsh or inappropriate and the carrot approach can be costly (time or money wise), this video looks at ‘the path of least resistance’ as an alternative method to motivating action in others.

The path of least resistance can work to motivate yourself as much as motivating others.

26th October 2021

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Is there ‘more’ locked in your team? Great teams fill gaps left by others to form a stronger whole. This video shares one tip on how you can identify and empower team members to fill or close those gaps.

Do you know where your gaps are and who in your team can help you? Do you know who you can help?

What are your tips for teams to learn from each other?

18th October 2021

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Our communication is perfect…. said no business ever. A common challenge is leadership saying they do too much and teams saying they don’t get enough. This video shares a tip around how to overcome these seemingly opposing views of internal comms.

What are you tips for better communication within businesses?

15th October 2021

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An decent worker completes their assigned tasks; a great one does a lot more. This video shares a quick tip on how you can transition more of your team from decent to good to great. 

Being great is about how you work with others, how you contribute intangible value and move the overall mission of the company forward.

Are you enabling your employees to achieve that?

Tracking performance can often be left to the numbers. Don’t get me wrong I love numbers and they definitely have a role to play. But this can leave a gap for how you want work to be undertaken, how we expect people to behave and what good looks like ‘around the office’.

This video shares a quick tip of something you can do to show your employees that their input is just as important as the output.

Do you reward inputs as well as outputs?

27th September 2021

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We hear a lot about forming the ‘right culture’. We all want to create, and work in, attractive and productive places to work, but how do you do it? This video looks at a simple technique I have had success with in the past at beginning to shape your desired work environment.

What do you think makes a great work culture?

Any tips to share on shaping one?

20th September 2021

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We are all on a constant quest to improve our businesses. We invest in training, tools, better processes; but it’s humans who are at the core of everything that gets done in business. This video outlines one tip for improving your performance across the board – investing in self-leadership.

Do you know the best way to lead yourself? Do your teams?

• Are you motivated more by a carrot or a stick?
• What holds you accountable?
• Are you going out of your way to understand how others are different?
• Do you understand how what you do effects others?
• Are you aware of your weaknesses and strengths?

Understanding how to lead and manage yourself better will allow you to better understand how you can increase your contribution to where the business is trying to go – are you allocating time to yourself, and your teams, to focus on this?

13th September 2021

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Are you and your team spending work time wisely? The answer is possibly ‘we could always do better’. This video looks at how to work out where talent and effort should be focused to maximise the impact of the time you have available on the success of your business.

The technique shared in this video was developed and popularised in manufacturing, but can be applied in any type of business, service or product, and for a team of 1 or across large organisations.

6th September 2021

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Missing more deadlines, despite working more hours? You’re not alone. According to a 2021 study by Asana, we are working 213 more hours a year on average but missing 26% of deadlines. There are many contributors but one is doing work that doesn’t add value. This video shares a quick tip of how to avoid this happening in your business.

30th August 2021

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Where’s that file??? So frustrating spending time searching through lots of folders to find the one file you want… but who has the time to sit and go through each file one by one deciding if it can be deleted… This video outlines a simple technique to categorise as you go so you can move disused files and folders out of the way without enduring ‘the big tidy out’.

23rd August 2021

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Identifying roadblocks in your business is only half the battle; how do you get rid of them? This video looks at a first step to take on your journey to overcoming them.

16th August 2021

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We all have business roadblocks – we expect them – but sometimes they are hard to nail down. This video shares one quick tip to help you identify the roadblocks obstructing you or your team’s way.

First step to eliminating or navigating roadblocks is knowing where and what they are.

9th August 2021

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Feedback is a tricky business. Important for perspective and progress, but can sometimes leave you in, what feels like, a worse position. This video outlines one quick tip for making your feedback more useful as the receiver or giver.
 

2nd August 2021

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Sometimes problems can be solved if you look at them from a different angle…. but how do you find the angle? The simple tip in this video shows you how anyone can do just that.
 

26th July 2021

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Solving problems isn’t just about taking action, it’s about taking action against the right root cause. This video outlines a simple technique, the fishbone technique, for devising a plan of action that will move the dial.
 
Effective for solving simple problems that involve just you or equally across a large team solving a complex, multivariate one.
 

19th July 2021

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Become more efficient… Some version of this objective is always on the list, it seems. This video looks at one tip that could help you achieve that goal.
 
Whether you work across multiple teams, with a smaller team or by yourself and your ‘team’ extends outside your company; this tip could help you avoid wasting unnecessary time, energy or effort..
 

12th July 2021

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Listening is a key business skill, perhaps even THE business skill. Important for sales, market feedback, teamwork, leadership, management, relationship building, problem solving… the list goes on. This video shares a couple of tips I’ve picked up around how to become a better listener.
 
Whether you would like to improve this skill or you want your team to become better listeners; I hope these tips will help you on your journey.
 

5th July 2021

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How do you create an agile team that you still feel in control of? Agile means continous improvement, adjusting as you go, having the courage to say let’s do something else. Control means they go in the right direction, changes are progress not steps back. This video looks at tips of how to achieve that ideal balance. 
 
People want to do a good job. But sometimes team members aren’t facing in the right direction. If steps forward are required, when the boss isn’t there, they can unknowingly wander off.
 
How do you solve it?
 
Understanding underlying business principals is the key to teams that all walks in the same direction towards growth. What are the true mechanics of your business? How do you really make money? What do your clients truely value?
 
Understanding ‘how it works’ teams are able to:

• See opportunities you can’t see and grab them
• Recognise what could use some oil and oil it
• Take decisions to move your business forward, without you

 Does your team truely know how your business works? Not sure? Just ask them…

 Ensuring they do will take you one step closer to shaping an agile, self-reliant team.

28th June 2021

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Are you effective at asking questions? Everyone’s job is solving problems. Questions that lead you to understanding the right information, connecting the meaningful dots and revealing the real truths are everything when it comes to solving the right problems.

“The manager who comes up with the right solution to the wrong problem is more dangerous than the manager who comes up with the wrong solution to the right problem” Peter Drucker

..is one of my favourite business quotes and has proven to be true time and time again.
 
85% of business leaders, according to a study by Harvard Business Review, believe their business is bad at problem diagnosis. 
 
Questions are the core of diagnosis. 
 
This video highlights a couple of tips for asking better questions, just scratching the surface of how to get better at this critical skill

21st June 2021

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We need data to make informed decisions but are you (or your team) spending too long collating it? This video looks at tips for streaming your reporting efficiency without compromising reporting quality.

“Making life harder, not easier”, is how most business owners feel about using data, according to a study run by Humanalytics. Data can just feel too time consuming. 

But data driven decisions can be taken more confidently, allow your business to be more productive and hit your targets more consistently.

Working out who needs to know what and which data will answer the questions they should be asking is key.

This video outlines three key things to think about

• Audience – who is the reporting for?
• Questions – what questions do they need answers to?
• Context – what other information do they need to make sense of the data?

14th June 2021

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Spending enough time working ‘on’ vs ‘in’ the business? Investment ‘on’ drives growth but when improvement projects flop it feels like time, money and effort wasted. This video looks at tips to help you keep your projects on track and yield the results you need.

‘Your day job’, accountability, checkpoint management, motivation, clarity, understanding, strategic alignment, ownership, leadership control…. all reasons projects can go off track, whether the project is ‘just you’ or involves everyone on the team.

Improving any of these areas will increase your chances at project success, this video outlines my three top tips:

• Always have a brief
• Continually challenge goal alignment
• Connect to learning opportunities

11th June 2021

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Do you tell stories? Stories share information, create reminders, build connections. Stories can also drive behaviours. This video shares a story a former employer told me which drove me to take the right actions, very quickly.

Could you use stories to drive behaviours and actions in your team, in line with your intentions?

Many of the stories we were told as children taught us lessons or encouraged us to behave in a certain way:

• Three little pigs – the easiest way isn’t always the best way
• Beauty and the beast – don’t judge a book by it’s cover
• Little red riding hood – be careful who you trust

Sharing anecdotes about rewarded behaviours or tales of happy customers can encourage your team to recognise what good looks like and emulate that in their own behaviour. Stories can give wider scope to instructions that can be applied across settings.

7th June 2021

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Ready, set, action! We all know that taking action is key to own success; reaching our business objectives; and the impact of our teams. But how do you get your teams to take action even when you’re not there?

Creating a team environment that favours ‘doing’ isn’t easy, it can be challenging enough to get ourselves going sometimes.

This video outlines 3 quick tips that will help move you in the right direction.

1. Create a bias for action
2. Remove bottlenecks
3. Don’t penalise bad decisions

You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind – Irish proverb. 

4th June 2021

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Did you get my email?…. *Translation* Why haven’t you responded to my email yet?!?

We all get too many emails; it’s hard to keep up. But when you are working in a team sometimes you need someone else to do something to move the project forward. Chasing isn’t fun for the chaser or the prey…

How do you make sure your request gets done? And gets done in a timely manner?

This short video looks at a 3 quick tips for maximising the chances of a response to your email request.

1. State the call to action clearly and early
2. Make actions as effortless as possible
3. Include a ‘why’ to their action

31st May 2021

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Do you use brainstorming to solve problems? We all know brainstorming done right unlocks creativity. For a team it can also build cooperation, commitment and enthusiasm.

The video shares a method developed by Dr. Edward de Bono and shared in his book ‘Six Thinking Hats’

Everyone’s job is to solve problems. For our business. For ourselves. For our customers. We constantly need to come up with ideas.

This model is a great starting point to get the creative juices flowing in a team or alone by wearing each hat one by one.

27th May 2021

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Has your business adjusted it’s direction? When you are driving change people have to ‘get it’, ‘believe it’ and ‘feel it’ for the change to stick. Effective messaging fosters stickiness. How do you ensure you cover everything?

People resist change because of uncertainty. Uncertainty about what it means for them, what they have to do, what the outcome will be. This video outlines 4 critical elements to improve your messaging impact.

Messaging that empowers your team get and stay on board, addresses:

• Understanding – appeal to their rational side
• Feeling – appeal to their emotional side
• Clarity – make change easy
• Assurance – minimise uncertainty

For a more in depth look at this framework and how to use it, see this article in the Insight Hub: How to craft meaningful change messages: Compel your team to jump and stay onboard

24th May 2021

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71% of managers think meetings are unproductive and inefficient*. We’ve all been in one, or two, or three. How can we make sure the meetings we host add value and don’t just drain time?

Unproductive meetings take us away from other work, can be distracting and can damage team cohesion. When you add up the salaries of everyone in the room it can be quite a costly exercise.

Perhaps one of the tips in this video can reduce that cost.

Unproductive meetings always caused me frustration, as a participant.

What are your meeting moans?

Mine include when:

• the main agenda is ‘when will we meet next’
• others haven’t done the prep so the host re-reads through it
• someone says ‘let’s take this offline’ i.e. I dont want to commit in front of others…

20th May 2021

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Have you made a mistake this week? Has your team? What could you have saved if it wasn’t made? Maybe an idea in this video could help you prevent it next time?

No one likes starting again but mistakes happen. We are all human after all. 

Mistakes can cause rework, bad customer experience, delays, rising costs, quality issues. They can make you feel deflated, cause team tension, fester blame and are just frustrating!

Could you put in place a simple solution that prevents the mistake from happening in the first place?

Prompts, fail-safes, check points, visibility, preventive action, different process step sequencing: mistake proofing ideas are all around us. Could you adapt one of these concepts for mistakes that occur in your place of work?

Post-its are my go-to fail safe.

17th May 2021

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Employees in a hybrid office/ home working world are 2.54 times more likely to experience digital distractions, than employees in the on-site world according to Gartner.

Have you recalibrated for the new work environment?

Text messages, social media, news alerts, a call from mum, packages, the dog, your partner… can all compete for our focus when we are working from home.

How do we minimise the distractions we can’t see for our teams? 

This video outlines 5 questions that will help reduce distractions for your team.