Breaking news - Latest course - womens personal safety

Breaking news - Our next training course will be WOMEN’S PERSONAL SAFETY and will launch on Wednesday 29th October 2008.

The course covers womens personal safety and will include essential advice on dealing with;

Stalking
Combating harassment in the workplace,
“road rage” awareness
Putting procedures in place to prevent a violent incident
The “date rape” drug

Of course, weekly update subscribers can get the course for free (as always) but we will be announcing a 2nd way to get the course completely free in the next few days so stay tuned..

Leadership styles

Leadership styles - there is a lot of hocus pocus and bunk written about leadership styles - so let’s make this really easy. There are really only 2 leadership styles - leading from the front and leading from the back..

What? No complicated methodology? No complicated formula that needs an army of consultants to set up and deliver?

No - just a simple question.

Do you lead from the front or lead from the back?

Imagine this

You are taking your children for a walk (if you don’t have children, imagine you do..) and you are walking in the park. You let them run on ahead and play. You idle along at the back - maybe have a drink or an ice cream. You are leading from the back. You have the situation under control and all is well. You have no need to get up and start shouting and telling children what to do.

But then you leave the park

And you walk to cross the road. You don’t want to be at the back now. Children will probably expect to be shouted at. You have to take control and now you are leading from the front.

So, it really is that easy, leadership styles can be broken down into 2 styles.

Which do you adopt, when & why?

More characteristics of a good manager

Continuing our series on management skills and characteristics of a good manager, this time we look at how a manager can ask someone to do something.

Is this how your manager asks you to do something?

We would call this leading from the front.

Shouting at everyone to keep up, keep in line, get work done quicker, faster more accurately.

Shouting and cursing first, getting the facts later.. if at all..

Is it motivating to be shouted at ?

No (well maybe sometimes) but we think there is a better way.

The truth is that (apart from risks to bodily health and safety..) a good manager should never has to tell anyone to do something.

The best managers, sometimes don’t even have to ask - staff are motivated, skilled and trained to know EXACTLY what to do and when/how to do it.

The best managers spend time putting in place procedures for work to be completed on time.

Here is an example.

Suppose you are the manager of a car spares shop. A client comes in and wants a new tyre. You don’t have that particular size you he leaves the car with you for a couple of hours.

When he returns, he claims that his daughter is a teenage golf champion and her custom made clubs have gone out of the car boot. They cost a lot money, he is very angry.

What do you do?

a - call him a liar (but not in so many words..) - you checked the boot and the clubs were not there then. But then it becomes you word against his… You lose a customer

b- Take his word for it, pay him some compensation and go off to find someone to blame for stealing the clubs

Either way, it will cost you some money…

There is another way..

A good manager will have put in place a procedure where the contents and state of the car are checked through and you will have a document to show him that two people checked and the clubs were not there. Of course, it will be date and time stamped to prove when it was completed.

Isn’t that better?

No shouting at anyone, no blame culture, no hassle.

Just try not to say “I told you so to the man with the golf champ for a daughter….”

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to our weekly update - at the moment, we are discussing negotiation skills & tactics

Free training course evaluation sheet

You can download our training course evaluation sheet here.

If you really must use a happy sheet to evaluate training then weekly update subscribers can download one from the members only site.

If you are not a weekly update subscriber you can sign up for free here otherwise just download your training happy sheet. (Yes this really was taken from a course evaluation sheet used by quite a large business)

Characteristics of a good manager

Characteristics of a good manager is the first of an occasional series of posts on this subject.

What is it about a good manager that differentiates them from an average one or a poor one?

Here is one thing which we think is essential.

When making a decision, good managers, collect ALL THE FACTS, take on board the views of all stakeholders and staff etc

Then they make a decision QUICKLY, making sure that the message is CLEARLY passed on to all concerned.

If they are forced to they change their mind SLOWLY.

Unfortunately, most managers we have worked with in the past have done almost exactly the opposite.

They have gathered a few facts from unreliable sources and made a quick decision.

At the first sign of challenge, they have run for cover and changed their minds.

This leaves staff confused & bewildered & they appear indecisive & weak.

How does your manager measure up in the “decision test?”

Photo courtesy of http://www.dezignia.com

Money Laundering awareness for £5

If you missed out on your free money laundering training, don’t dispair. For a limited time only, you can get 5 days access for just £5.

After 5 days, if you like the course and order more than 10 users, we will give you your £5 back.

Take the 5 day test now

Money Laundering - Free access closed

It is now Tuesday 16th September 2008, 5pm

Free access to the money laundering training is now closed.

We will be sending access details to all weekly update subscribers tomorrow.

To make sure you don’t miss out on future free training, just join our weekly email update list.

Simple Training Needs Analysis with Excel

In this blog post we you how to compile a simple training needs analysis (TNA) using excel.

This video is now being made public.

Don’t miss out - If you aren’t a subscriber, you need to sign up now.. You could have been using this simple but effective technique since January.

Sign up here…

Free Money Laundering training

Can we make it any more plain? Free money laundering training

To get your free money laundering awareness training, you MUST sign up to our weekly update by 5:00pm Tuesday 16th September 2008.

This short video explains more

Two types of people

Here is a way of looking at people and life which you may not have heard of before.

Not sure who first coined the phrases - it was wasn’t us - we came across them on a stress awareness workshop a few years ago.

Radiator people are fun to be around. Think of someone who has just passed an exam or got a promotion. They will be bouncing around all over the place. They will radiate good feelings and energy.

Now think of someone who has just failed and examine or had some bad luck befall them Do you think they are likely to be such a bundle of happiness?

No, of course they are not.

They are drain people. They will drain the life and energy out of anyone they come into contact with.

These are the people who will moan about the weather, the state of the country, the nation’s youth, anything.

After a while, constant moaning will drain the life out of you.

We all exhibit both types of behaviour to various degree (most of the time, without knowing it and sometimes, we can’t help it.)

Of course, the trick for managers, is getting more people to be radiator people and radiator behaviour and less drain behaviour.

Weekly update subscribers will get our short guide to managing the third type of person. - To get this valuable advice - just drop your email into the box on the left hand side of the screen.