People

Posts on the power of people, relationships and getting the best out of both

Leader Terminator 7
Reading Time: 3 minutesLeadership style is something I’ve been pondering for a while now. I’ve been lucky to have met and worked with many great leaders over my career and I’ve also met and worked for some that, shall we say, could have done with some development and coaching. I don’t like putting people into [...]

The Terminator ~ Leadership Styles – Part 1

Word Cloud - Elephant in the Room 3
Reading Time: 7 minutesI see two distinct types of ‘Elephant’ in my line of work…and two ways of tackling them. The Management Elephant and the Leadership Elephant. This blog focusses on the latter. If you missed Part 1 – An Elephant in the Room: Management breakthroughs, and are wondering what on earth I’m [...]

An Elephant in the Room Part 2 – Leadership Breakthroughs

Listen to your People
Reading Time: 3 minutesFor a while now I’ve worked with developing my direct team into being more… More focused, more passionate, delivering more and being more commercially and customer focused. And to a large degree we’ve succeeded. I’m really proud of them and what we’ve achieved so far. But to really succeed and make a step change in our [...]

Stop listening …. and give up!

Mark Conway 1
Reading Time: 5 minutesThanks to those of you who took the time to complete the recent Top Leadership Challenges poll. The top 3 challenges as voted for by Think Oak! readers are: 1. Creating a high performance culture How leaders believe things should get done is a key driver of culture. Leaders establish [...]

Top Leadership Challenges – The Results

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Reading Time: 5 minutesYou would be amazed at the number of people who still don’t understand the importance of networking. Building relationships is crucial – there are many smart, talented people who don’t progress as much as they would hope in their career because they are not visible to the “right” people. Use every opportunity to build relationships with [...]

Business Networking – It’s not ‘what’ you know…

, Tree, Mark Conway, Oak Consult 3
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn my experience, over performance in business can’t happen consistently without building powerful relationships. Similarly, if you look at underperformance in your team, you will often find that it is the lack of powerful relationships or broken relationships that are the cause. There is no quick fix….sorry. BUT, if you invest time, honesty, passion and [...]

10 ways for building powerful relationships

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Reading Time: 3 minutesI’m not sure who came up with the phrase – ‘There’s no ‘I’ in team’, and I’m sure it was meant with good intentions – focussing everyone on team work and collective goals and not individual egos. I’ve always used the hugely clever and witty repost whenever anyone has said [...]

There’s no I in Team…but there is an ‘M’ and ...

Reading Time: 2 minutesBusiness people are often very poor at thinking about who would take their place, their successor, should the worst happen to them. Who should you be starting to coach to be your second in command? Well, here are some thoughts on the kind of individual you’re looking  for (not in any particular [...]

15 Ways To Find Your Successor

Reading Time: 2 minutesMost people on earth with a TV have watched Star Wars. In ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, Yoda, the iconic Jedi Master says one line that has stuck with me ever since… “Do or do not. There is no try.” Those with passion, confidence and belief – Do; those without passion, [...]

Yoda said: ‘Do or do not. There is no try!’

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Reading Time: 4 minutesThis week I’ve had the privilege to meet with some fantastic educators from around the region. Some of these conversations were around the topic of employability – what differentiates great from good candidates and what do employers look for in school leavers or graduates? So below I’ve outlined 10 key attributes that I believe are crucial [...]

Employability ~ Who to employ?