Archive for 'Professional Development'

A recent edition of the Harvard Business Review ran with a front cover piece which claimed, “We have studied 25,453 companies over 40 years to find the 3 Rules for Success”.  Through this extensive research the authors, Raynor and Ahmed, concluded the following for making a company great:

1. Better before Cheaper – compete on differentiators rather than price 2. Revenue before Cost – prioritize growing revenue over reducing costs 3. There are no rules – change anything to follow Rules 1 and 2

This was a little disappointing as one might be expecting some earth shattering Read more »

Sadly for many, career and happiness are two words that don’t belong in the same sentence. Many individuals legitimately pursue a certain career with the best of intentions and yet end up unhappy.  Some might even go as far as to suggest that you are not supposed to be happy; after all that is why you get compensated.  Does it really have to be that way?

Here are some cold facts.  We spend an average of 50 hours per week working when you consider commuting as well.  That represents about 40% of our waking hours.  We Read more »

With such dramatic advances in technology, virtual learning is gaining more and more traction as being a cost efficient means of providing professional development to the masses. Universities and colleges have been at the forefront of this advance but now even entrepreneurial trainers can access such technologies in a cost efficient manner. Virtual learning unquestionably makes training accessible to many more people. Where organizations might have been prepared to send 20 people away for a two day program, they now can have 200 people access Read more »

James Joyce once wrote, “A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery”; he was speaking about William Shakespeare. Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. What does all this mean? Are mistakes simply an essential part of how we develop, both personally and professionally. In fact, one could say that most mistakes are positive!

As human beings, despite our best intentions, we make “mistakes” all the time. Read more »

What does it take to make a relationship work? Or perhaps more importantly, what is typically at the heart of a relationship breaking down. When you meet somebody for the first time common courtesy (for the most part) and benefit of the doubt puts the relationship somewhere on an even keel. Then depending on the subsequent course of action and behavior, it either goes up or goes down. One of the key behavioral drivers to this is the degree of civility, or perhaps lack thereof.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, authors Porath and Pearson suggested Read more »

We have all heard the old adage that many would prefer death over speaking in public. Why is it that we naturally and instinctively can converse, yet when formalized, many of us freeze or cringe at the thought? Much has been written and businesses thrive to help address this long standing and restricting challenge.

So what really works? The following generally accepted strategies are typically employed and perhaps one might be for you.

There are numerous public speaking schools which along with the likes of Toastmasters advocate readiness in terms on Preparation, Practice and Repetition. With these Read more »

In the book, “The Go – Giver” which is an obvious twist on “the Go – Getter”, writers Bob Burg and John David Mann offer some very novel principles on the merits of giving. Essentially the message from this book is that by giving unconditionally it comes back tenfold. On some intuitive level we perhaps knew this but now we have pretty credible writers as well as numerous academic researchers (Feeling Good about Giving – Harvard Business School: Anik, Aknin et al) supporting the fact that giving enhances happiness, which ultimately leads to personal and professional Read more »

During the most recent presidential election it was intriguing the level of fear that seemed to exist around this much, and some would argue over, publicized event. People were genuinely worried sick about the outcome if the side they supported did not win. There is some irony in this given that the United States is heralded as the land of freedom and where democracy reigns supreme; yet an election outcome was being greeted by fear.

When we vote, we have a choice and democracy is such that, Read more »

According to Dan Pink in his book, Drive, there are three components to driving motivation within employees, namely Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy. He argues that essentially people want to understand how their role fits into the overall goal of the business, they need the skills to do it and finally they flourish when given the freedom to execute.

Purpose and Autonomy are pretty self explanatory so let’s explore Mastery in some further detail. Mastery does not imply that you must be the best or that you have Read more »

With billions of dollars spend every year on professional development and training, how much really sticks?  We have all heard the comments “the training was awesome” and then very little changes. Or how many have attended programs where half the participants didn’t want to be there and the other half didn’t know why they were? I’ll let you judge which half you belonged to! Part of the challenge is with the way many training programs are delivered. And even if the content is rich, Read more »