Think Oak Blogs

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Reading Time: 8 minutesCommunicate or Fail may sound a little extreme. It’s not. Organisations and individuals can succeed or fail on the effectiveness of their communications. Communicate or Fail is a two-part post focussing on communications at an organisational level and on a personal level. Part 1 will focus on organisational communication. Good [...]

Communicate or Fail ~ Part 1

Destiny or Design - Choose to Succeed 5
Reading Time: 8 minutesLife is not something that just happens to you, something you are powerless to do anything about. You have choices. You can choose to succeed. It is never too late to improve your life and implement the changes that are going to lead you to your ambitions. I don’t profess to [...]

Destiny or Design ~ Choose to Succeed

Teamwork 3
Reading Time: 7 minutesTrue teamwork promotes individual and collective performance. Powerful teams value listening and communicating, sharing work responsibilities, provide support and can even make work more social and enjoyable. Team members are supportive of one another and recognise the interests and achievements of each other. I would go one step further and [...]

Creating Powerful Teams

Keep People Inspired 2
Reading Time: 4 minutesBusiness is all about measurement. Peter Drucker’s quote – “What gets measured gets managed” is never more true than in today’s tough economic climate. The use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are at the heart of most high performing businesses. However, there is often one important KPI missing,  and that is [...]

THE Key Performance Indicator – Keep People Inspired

Energy 6
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn a previous post, I talked about the importance of Focus. In this post I will be talking about the importance of energy and how you manage yours to ensure you achieve your goals. While both focus and energy are important, neither by itself is sufficient to produce the kind [...]

High Energy High Performance

Focus 3
Reading Time: 4 minutesBill Gates achieved monumental success with Microsoft, and attributes “focus” as the key to his success. He stated “maintaining focus is a key to success. You should understand your circle of competence and spend your time and energy there…I’ve learned that only through focus can you do world-class things, no [...]

Focus on Focus

Measuring Success
Reading Time: 9 minutesIn the sixth and final part in the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the last step in the START process in Brand New, Brand You, Test. So you’ve got to grips with Brand New, Brand You. You’ve developed your Brand – Your values and [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 6

Reinforce - Brand New Brand You 1
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn the fifth part in the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the fourth step in the START process in Brand New, Brand You, Reinforce. Now that you have started to establish the Brand New Brand You, it is important that you continually reinforce your [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 5

Online Brand 3
Reading Time: 14 minutesIn the fourth part in the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the third step in the START process – Articulate. Brand You is who you already are, whether you are consciously aware of it or not. Brand New, Brand You is about building a [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 4

LinkedIn 5
Reading Time: 9 minutesIn the third part in the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the second step in the START process in Brand New, Brand You ~ Toolkit Development. START – Toolkit Development What tools will help you deliver your brand to the outside world and what [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 3

Brand New, Brand You - Self-discovery 7
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn the second part of the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the first step in the START process in Brand New, Brand You, namely Self-discovery. START – Self-discovery A personal brand is much more than a job title or how you look. This first [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 2

Brand You START 8
Reading Time: 3 minutesI’ve had some feedback recently that people would like some support in finding new roles, building their personal profile and generally improving their employability. Brand New, Brand You is a series of Think Oak! posts to help you improve your personal brand in the increasingly crowded and competitive job market. Brands [...]

The Brand New, Brand You ~ Part 1

Milestones 2
Reading Time: 7 minutesThere are many theories on implemnting change effectively. Many originate with leadership and change management guru, John Kotter. A professor at Harvard Business School and world-renowned change expert, Kotter introduced his eight-step change process in his 1995 book, “Leading Change” with a follow-up work “Our Iceberg is Melting” in 2006. Step [...]

Implementing Change Effectively

Dodo
Reading Time: 4 minutesWith today’s rapidly evolving technology and business markets in their most challenging time for decades, companies rise and fall faster than ever before. Leaders must constantly anticipate the market and their customer needs and that sometimes means you need to make changes – be that processes, products, organisational structure, or even the [...]

Dead as a Dodo…..Why Teams Don’t / Won’t Change

The Collaborator 3
Reading Time: 3 minutesIn the world of social media and ‘crowd-sourcing’, surely The Collaborator is the best leadership style for our times? The Collaborator is a very open and collective leader in running a team. Ideas move freely amongst the group and are discussed openly. Everyone is given a seat at the table, [...]

The Collaborator – Leadership Styles ~ Part 4

The Oracle 2
Reading Time: 3 minutesWelcome to Part 3 of Leadership Styles: The Oracle The late, great and inspirational Steve Jobs made a statement that neatly introduces The Oracle leadership style: ‘Leaders are fascinated by the future, you are a leader if, and only if, you are restless for change, impatient for progress, and deeply [...]

The Oracle – Leadership Styles – Part 3

Coaching Team 3
Reading Time: 4 minutesWelcome to Part 2 of Leadership Styles: The Coach Author, educator, and motivational speaker, Dr. William Arthur Ward wrote a phrase that I try to remember. It gives me personal strength to do the right thing, rather than the easy thing – ‘The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. [...]

The Coach ~ Leadership Styles – Part 2

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

Teams and Teamwork
Reading Time: 7 minutesTeams and Teamwork have changed The make-up and nature of teams have changed significantly in recent years. Organisations have become more distributed across geography and across industries. Closer relationships between people inside an organisation and those previously considered outside (customers, suppliers, partners and other stakeholders) have become more important. Organisations [...]

Teams and Teamwork 2.0

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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!’

Reading Time: 2 minutesThanks to all of you that contributed to my recent poll on Leadership Qualities. The results are in and the top 3 qualities of a leader as voted for by Think Oak! followers are: 1. Great Communicator Great leaders know how to deliver their message in a way that will create a [...]

Top 3 Qualities of a Leader

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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?

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Reading Time: 3 minutesI’ve just got back from a few days away with the family at Center Parcs in Nottinghamshire (UK). We had a great time…and whilst Center Parcs is not everyone’s thing, we love it there – It’s very relaxing and there’s something to do for most people with most budgets. I’ve [...]

Customer Service ~ Basil Fawlty or Walt Disney

Reading Time: 2 minutesI’ve had the pleasure over the last few weeks to come into contact with a number of people who have really inspired me. Some have been inspiring me for a number of years, some I’ve only just met. But what is it that makes someone inspirational? I’ve come up with a [...]

What makes someone inspirational?