We each have both strengths and weaknesses in every job we do. Our strengths are the things we are naturally good at and the weaknesses are the things we can only ever make limited progress in. For managers and team leaders, the aim of understanding people’s strengths is to help people excel.

Here are 7 ways to use people’s strengths: » (Read More)

The other day I read a newspaper article that challenged everything we’d ever thought about using praise to motivate people.

It came from research done at Stanford University, California, which found that students who are repeatedly praised become risk-averse, make less effort, and are less motivated.

According to Professor Carole Dweck, praising a student too often fails to help them for three reasons. » (Read More)

If you want to move up the ranks of masterful communication, you have to watch what you say to others. Not just in the showpieces of communication such as a presentation or a meeting, but in everyday interaction. Learn the following 7 rules and you can quietly become a master of one-to-one communication:

1. Be Kind.

Whenever you engage with people, you always have two choices. You can communicate from a standpoint of love or from one of fear. When your communication is laced with sarcasm, blame, threat, anger, anxiety, worry, and control, you are communicating fear. » (Read More)

Can you remember your first training model?

I don’t mean that dishy graduate from the IT training team or that handsome hunk from the consultancy.

I mean a theory of how people behave and relate in organisations.

I can.

It was Theory X and Theory Y and it was nearly 35 years ago. » (Read More)

For those of who you are regular readers of mine, you’ll know that I love stories that coach.

Stories that coach are great ways to learn. They are fun to listen to and easy to remember. And the best stories always bring a smile to people’s faces and a glow to their hearts.

There exists a tale, handed down from times long ago, of two travelers on a pilgrimage. Hungry and tired from a long day’s journey, they come to a small, impoverished village, where they decide to rest by the side of the road. » (Read More)

If you live in the United Kingdom and have watched TV shows like the “X Factor”, you’ll know that there’s a big difference between those who are talentless and those who go all the way to the final with heaps of the “X” factor.

In fact, much of the show’s attraction lies in the contrast between the early no-hopers with no talent for what the show is looking for and the later-stage finalists who have it in abundance.

The result is that, in our own lives, many of us are more likely to identify with the talentless no-hopers than the glamorous stars. » (Read More)

Paying compliments is an important way to build rapport with others, whether they are colleagues, customers, or casual contacts.

But there is a right way to do it; and a wrong way.

The wrong way is to pay a compliment as » (Read More)

If, like me, you run your own business, you’ll know how easy it is to take on jobs that are not really yours and that you don’t have time to do.

We do it because » (Read More)