BLACKPOOL HEALTH LIBRARY: At the Heart of Quality Information on the Fylde Coast! Management Update from your Library: a collection of interesting articles focusing on leadership and management.

 

Managing Mutual Acceptance in Your Team: Do You Welcome the Differences of Others?

No two people think or act in exactly the same way. For this reason, when you bring any group of people together for the first time, you have the potential for misunderstanding and conflict. However, these differences can – when well managed – lead to better performance by individuals, teams and organizations.

Consider your own workplace for a moment. Are you fortunate enough to work somewhere that doesn’t just accept people’s differences but actively celebrates them? Or does it sometimes feel as if distrust and prejudice are part of the culture? The chances are your organization falls somewhere in the middle, and there may be room for improvement.

In this article, we’ll explore why it’s important to accept other people, and how you can encourage your team members to welcome diversity. We’ll help you to identify when their behavior toward one another is unacceptable, and offer ways to support people in speaking up about it.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Overcoming Invisible Barriers to Success

Great strides have been made toward equality in the workplace but, even today, many people find themselves unfairly blocked from advancing in their careers.

They may be ideal candidates for promotion, with relevant qualifications, experience, and “can-do” attitudes – but time and again they see less competent co-workers overtake them, or are overlooked for senior positions.

They’ve hit the glass ceiling.

In this article, we explore what the glass ceiling is, and we look at what individuals and organizations can do to smash it!

Avoiding Unconscious Bias at Work: Avoiding Accidental Discrimination

Our brains are hardwired to make unconscious decisions, because the number of choices we face every day would be overwhelming if we had to consciously evaluate every single one. That means there is a direct link between our unconscious thinking and our actions and behavior. And when it comes to making choices at work, it’s important to know they are not based on bias.

In this article, we’ll explore why we make these subconscious assumptions and how we can avoid them.

The Conscious Competence Ladder: Keeping Going When Learning Gets Tough

When we learn new skills, we experience different emotions at different stages of the learning process.

For instance, at the beginning, we may not appreciate how much we need to learn. Then, when we discover what we don’t know about a subject, we may get disheartened, and we might even give up.

This is why it helps to understand the emotions that you’re likely to experience at each stage of the learning process, so that you can manage the emotional ups and downs that go along with learning a new skill.

The Conscious Competence Ladder helps you do this. In this article, we’ll look at this model, and we’ll highlight how you can use it to learn new skills more effectively.

What Managers Should Know About Postpartum Depression: How to support new parents on your team

Most employees don’t share their struggles with their employer. Karen Kleiman, founder of the Postpartum Stress Center, told me, “One of the most universal ‘go to’ responses…is to overcompensate by creating the illusion of being just fine through an extreme professional push. There is a general notion of being able to conquer.” The parent’s struggle doesn’t always show on the outside. As Kleiman explains, “Sometimes the women who look the best right away, the ones who come off as good and strong, are going to extraordinary lengths to show the world how in control and strong they are — these women are actually doing the worst.”

But a manager’s support can make a huge difference…

Great Employees Want to Learn. Great Managers Know How to Teach.

“I’d like to work for a manager I can learn from.” This phrase has come up again and again in interviews I’ve conducted for my team at the World Economic Forum and from more junior folks who I’ve met through various mentoring programs. These people aren’t looking for someone to lecture them, they’re looking for someone who can help them build knowledge and skills as they work toward a valuable goal. As workers get more used to a fluid workplace, where longevity in one firm isn’t the goal and developing a portfolio of skills is more important, managers who can offer learning opportunities will be in high demand.

How One Company Got Employees to Speak Up and Ask for Help

As a leader, if you want to create an environment where it’s okay to ask for help, how can you show that even you need help from time to time? How can you publicly celebrate people giving and receiving help? If you want people to start asking for help, then they need to see everyone else doing it too. Make it safe to ask for help!

Copyright © 2018 Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, All rights reserved. We thought you might find this new Library bulletin of interest Our mailing address is:

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Victoria Hospital

Blackpool, LancsFY3 8NR

United Kingdom

 

BLACKPOOL HEALTH LIBRARY: At the Heart of Quality Information on the Fylde Coast! Management Update from your Library: a collection of interesting articles focusing on leadership and management.

 

How Mindfulness Leads to Emotional Intelligence

If you hear that a new team member or manager is “emotionally intelligent,” you’ll probably nod gratefully. You’ll understand that he or she will likely listen to you, try to see things from your point of view, and resist jumping to conclusions.

Before 1995, though, you may have wondered what on earth that phrase meant. That’s when psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman published his ground-breaking book, “Emotional Intelligence.”

 

How to Be Conscientious: Building Career Success by Being Bothered

A 2007 study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that conscientiousness has two distinct parts. We each have them, to varying degrees.

Industriousness stems from our desire for achievement. Common motivators are chances to produce quality work, to demonstrate expertise, and to increase knowledge. When you’re “industriously conscientious,” you excel in making plans and setting goals. You tenaciously pursue them through setbacks, and you show self-discipline, control and determination.

Orderliness is rooted less in ambition and more in a sense of duty to your team and organization. As an “orderly conscientious” person, you’re good at following rules and norms, and at being diligent, reliable and responsible. You’re organized, diplomatic and punctual. You think before you act, and you care about doing a good job.

If you’re a conscientious person, you resist behaviors that could harm your ability or reputation. A co-worker might be known for being slow to start work, but you avoid procrastination and “buckle down” without delay.

 

9 Ways to Use Your Dead Time Wisely: Staying Ahead When Things Get Slow

You’ve just sent off your latest report to your manager – and before the deadline, too. Great job! You’ve bought yourself a bit of time and can now get a head start on your next project.

But, before you’re able to get going, you need some key information from a colleague, and he says that it won’t be available for a few days.

So, what can you do until then to fill the “dead” time? You don’t want to just “twiddle your thumbs.” Do you catch up with admin? Ask your manager if there’s anything you can do? Or, do you just enjoy the rare downtime?

In this article, we look at why dead time occurs, the challenges that it presents, and how to use it wisely.

 

How to Be Organized: Taking Control and Being Productive

Many people struggle with disorganization. And, while some think they can succeed amidst the chaos, this disorganization can end up costing a high price. Disorganization can hold us back from getting the promotion we’ve always wanted. It can block our creativity, add stress to our lives, and prevent us from being as productive and effective as we could be.

In this article and in the video, below, we’ll look at some strategies for getting organized, so that we can start living and working to our full potential.

 

How to Be a Great Team Player: Maximizing Your Contribution

In this article we show you what makes a good team player, and we offer some tips on how to make a bigger contribution in the future.

 

9 Ways to Future Proof Your Career: Staying Relevant for Tomorrow’s World

What will your job look like five years from now? Will it even exist in five, 10 or 20 years? And what will happen to the organization and industry you work for?

We don’t know what the future holds, but we do know that we live in changing, turbulent times  . This means that your job description could be very different – or even irrelevant – in the years to come.

If your skillset or experience fall “behind the times,” you may struggle to find work or gain promotion. But there are strategies that you can put in place now to ensure that you don’t hit a career “dead end.”

 

You Have to Stop Cancelling and Rescheduling Things. Really.

Why do any of us say we will do things and then fail to do them?

We overcommit ourselves. We don’t like to disappoint people, so we tell them what we think they want to hear. We feel pressure in the moment and don’t stop to consider how much pressure we’ll feel later. We don’t think through how much time things will actually take — and we don’t leave enough slack time in our days to handle the (inevitable) emergencies and delays.

Up until a few years ago, I cancelled or postponed meetings a lot. I would say yes to something (so much easier than saying no). As the commitment approached, I would feel overwhelmed and want to cancel. And often, I would cancel.

Then I read Stephen M.R. Covey’s book The Speed of Trust. It’s about being trustworthy. I had always thought that I was, but the author explains that when you make appointments and you cancel them, then trustworthy you aren’t. When you fail to fulfil commitments that you freely make, trust is not the result…

 

How to Tell If You’re Delegating Too Much — and What to Do About It

Everyone knows leaders should delegate to ensure that they are working on the right projects and deliverables. But if you find yourself frequently miscommunicating with your team on deliverables, hearing about issues at the last minute, and misunderstanding how your team set their priorities, it may be a sign you’ve delegated too much, leaving their employees to feel abandoned and unmotivated. At that point, it’s important to take back responsibility for certain tasks to insure you’re providing your team the guidance and structure they need. Here are three steps you can take.

 

How Self-Reflection Can Help Leaders Stay Motivated

We tend to romanticize leadership. When friends are promoted to managerial positions, we slap them on the back, tell them that they finally made it, and congratulate them for their hard work. Our reactions are understandable. Occupying a leadership role often comes with more prestige, financial resources, flexibility, and future employment opportunities. We often forget, however, that there is a flipside to this coin — leadership is hard and exhausting work…

 

Copyright © 2018 Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, All rights reserved. We thought you might find this new Library bulletin of interest Our mailing address is:

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Victoria Hospital

Blackpool, LancsFY3 8NR

United Kingdom

 

BLACKPOOL HEALTH LIBRARY: At the Heart of Quality Information on the Fylde Coast! Management Update from your Library: a collection of interesting articles focusing on leadership and management.

 

Conflict Resolution: Using the “Interest-Based Relational” Approach

Conflict is an inevitable part of work. We’ve all seen situations where people with different goals and needs have clashed, and we’ve all witnessed the often intense personal animosity that can result.

As you’ll learn in this article and video, the fact that conflict exists, however, is not necessarily a bad thing. When you resolve it effectively, you can also eliminate many of the hidden problems that it brought to the surface.

 

What Is Personal Empowerment? Taking Charge of Your Life and Career

Do you ever feel that you have no control over your life and work? Perhaps you feel dominated by your colleagues, or overwhelmed by the demands of your job. Or is your time outside the workplace spent tending to other people’s needs at the expense of your own?

This sense of powerlessness can be immensely frustrating. But, no matter what personal challenges you face, you can always make choices that give you back control. Understanding this is the essence of self-empowerment.

In this article, we examine personal empowerment in more detail, and explore the tools and techniques that you can use to achieve it.

 

Building Self-Confidence: Preparing Yourself for Success!

Confident people inspire confidence in others: their audience, their peers, their bosses, their customers, and their friends. And gaining the confidence of others is one of the key ways in which a self-confident person finds success. The good news is that self-confidence really can be learned and built on. And, whether you’re working on your own confidence or building the confidence of people around you, it’s well-worth the effort!

 

Building Trust Inside Your Team: Ways to Improve Team Cohesion

Have you ever managed people who didn’t trust one another? If you have, then you’ll know how challenging and draining this can be.

So how can you, as a leader, help your team to build the trust that it needs to flourish? In this article we’ll look at the issue of trust within teams, why it’s important, and what you can do to build it.

 

How to Manage a Grieving Team Member: Supporting People in Times of Sadness

Managing a grieving team member has its challenges. Should you act like nothing’s happened? Or, should you talk to him or her about it? But, what if you say the wrong thing? How do you respond if he gets angry or upset?

And then there are the practicalities to consider. How will his grief affect his work? Will he need to take time off? Will his workload need to be reduced? Will you need to arrange cover?

In this article, we’ll explore what grief is and how it can affect people. We’ll also look at strategies that you can use to ease the burden of work when someone in your team experiences personal loss.

 

Keeping Your Word at Work: Building Trust by Keeping Promises

What does it mean to “keep your word”? Essentially, it’s doing what you say you’ll do.

So, when you tell your colleagues that you’ll chair next week’s meeting, you turn up on time and do a good job. Or, when you inform your manager that you’ll have that report on his or her desk by tomorrow morning, you deliver it.

Over time, honouring your promises (no matter how small) can earn you an enviable reputation for dependability, reliability and trustworthiness. This, in turn, can help you to develop and deepen your working relationships.

However, it’s sometimes very hard to do what we say we’ll do, and in this article we’ll explore why that is. We’ll also assess the potential impact of breaking a promise, and suggest five ways to avoid ever doing so again.

 

Research: To Get People to Embrace Change, Emphasize What Will Stay the Same

The implications of this research are straightforward. In overcoming resistance to change and building support for change, leaders need to communicate an appealing vision of change in combination with a vision of continuity. Unless they are able to ensure people that what defines the organization’s identity — “what makes us who we are” — will be preserved despite the changes, leaders may have to brace themselves for a wave of resistance.

 

Most Managers Don’t Know How to Coach People. But They Can Learn.

Are you successful at coaching your employees? In our years studying and working with companies on this topic, we’ve observed that when many executives say “yes,” they’re ill-equipped to answer the question. Why? For one thing, managers tend to think they’re coaching when they’re actually just telling their employees what to do…

 

Build Self-Awareness with Help from Your Team

There are lots of compelling reasons to build a better team. Great teams deliver stronger results, faster. They’re more innovative. They challenge you to learn more quickly and to be at your best. And, let’s face it — they’re simply more fun to work with.

Recently, I found a new reason to build a better team — to address the fact that most of us are surprisingly lacking in self-awareness.

 

Copyright © 2018 Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, All rights reserved. We thought you might find this new Library bulletin of interest Our mailing address is:

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Victoria Hospital

Blackpool, LancsFY3 8NR

United Kingdom

BLACKPOOL HEALTH LIBRARY: At the Heart of Quality Information on the Fylde Coast! Management Update from your Library: a collection of interesting articles focusing on leadership and management.

 

Creative Problem Solving: Finding Innovative Solutions to Challenges

Creative problem solving (CPS) is a way of solving problems or identifying opportunities when conventional thinking has failed. It encourages you to find fresh perspectives and come up with innovative solutions, so that you can formulate a plan to overcome obstacles and reach your goals.

In this article, we’ll explore what CPS is, and we’ll look at its key principles. We’ll also provide a model that you can use to generate creative solutions.

Journaling for Professional Development – Improving Yourself Through Reflection

Would you like to become a better communicator, to develop self-awareness, to build self-confidence, and to learn quickly from mistakes, via one simple, daily event? All of this – and more – is possible when you keep a journal.

In this article, we’ll explore what journaling can do for you, and how you can fit this valuable habit into your schedule.

Overcoming Fear of Failure: Facing Your Fear of Moving Forward

Have you ever been so afraid of failing at something that you decided not to try it at all? Or has a fear of failure meant that, subconsciously, you undermined your own efforts to avoid the possibility of a larger failure?

Many of us have probably experienced this at one time or another. The fear of failing can be immobilizing – it can cause us to do nothing, and therefore resist moving forward. But when we allow fear to stop our forward progress in life, we’re likely to miss some great opportunities along the way.

In this article, we’ll examine fear of failure: what it means, what causes it, and how to overcome it to enjoy true success in work, and in life.

Breaking Down Silos at Work: Creating Effective Relationships With Other Departments

At some point, you’ll likely need support, input or resources from another department in your organization. Or, other teams will approach yours for information, assistance or approval.

But working with other departments isn’t always as simple as it sounds. Their priorities and processes may conflict with yours. They may seem reluctant to share their knowledge or expertise. Or, particularly in large organizations, they may not even know that your department exists! This can lead to confusion and frustration on both sides.

However, the symptoms of a “silo” mentality are often the result of poor communication, misunderstandings or a lack of awareness, rather than an unwillingness to cooperate.

So, in this article, we discuss how you can overcome these issues by learning about the other departments in your organization, the work that they do, and how their activities fit into the “bigger picture.”

Supporting a Friend or Co-Worker Suffering From Stress: Lending a Helping Hand When Things Get Tough

In this article, you can learn how to identify stress in others, and explore a five-step strategy for tactfully offering your support, without becoming overburdened yourself.

Random Acts of Kindness: Building Altruism at Work

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop

When was the last time you surprised someone at your workplace with a cup of tea or coffee, just because you thought he or she might need it? Or how long has it been since a colleague brought in cakes, just as an unexpected treat for everyone?

It can be a real pleasure working in a friendly environment, where people greet one another with warm smiles and show genuine interest in colleagues’ well-being. And sometimes all it takes to create that positive atmosphere is a few “random acts of kindness.”

It’s entirely possible to have a productive and hardworking team in a workplace that is efficient, but “cold” and impersonal. Perhaps you work in an industry where staff turnover is high and it is difficult for people to get to know one another. But you and your team can make things much better if you share a little kindness!

In this article, we explore what is meant by random acts of kindness, and we see how they can benefit you and your team. We also suggest some simple ones you can try!

4 Ways Leaders Can Protect Their Time and Empower Their Teams

We know that controlling what we pay attention to is the key to living an intentional life. According to an informal poll of my clients, one of the biggest impediments to attention management is “O.P.P.” — other people’s problems. This is a particular problem for my clients in leadership who find it difficult to disconnect from their team, even for short periods. The primary reasons they give for this constant availability are that they “don’t want to be the bottleneck that holds up important work,” and they want to be available to make decisions and mentor their staff through problems. So in this article, I want to take a deeper dive into learning to control your environment.

The 2 Types of Respect Leaders Must Show

Kristie Rogers, an assistant professor of management at Marquette University, has identified a free and abundant resource most leaders aren’t giving employees enough of: respect. She explains the two types of workplace respect, how to communicate them, and what happens when you don’t foster both.

What Not to Do When You’re Trying to Motivate Your Team

Here is what to do instead…

 

Copyright © 2018 Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, All rights reserved. We thought you might find this new Library bulletin of interest Our mailing address is:

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Victoria Hospital

Blackpool, LancsFY3 8NR

United Kingdom

 

BLACKPOOL HEALTH LIBRARY: At the Heart of Quality Information on the Fylde Coast! Management Update from your Library: a collection of interesting articles focusing on leadership and management.

 

How to Be Organized: Taking Control and Being Productive

Time is really the only capital any human being has, and the one thing he can’t afford to waste. Thomas Edison

Do you waste much time during your day due to disorganization? Perhaps you spend five minutes searching for a misplaced file, another five looking for an email detailing an important meeting, and perhaps 10 minutes more finding today’s to-do list, lost in the piles of papers on your desk.

Before you know it, you’ve spent an hour throughout the day looking for things you can’t find. And that’s just one day! Imagine how much time you’re losing each week, each month, and each year!

Many people struggle with disorganization. And, while some think they can succeed amidst the chaos, this disorganization can end up costing a high price. Disorganization can hold us back from getting the promotion we’ve always wanted. It can block our creativity, add stress to our lives, and prevent us from being as productive and effective as we could be.

In this article we’ll look at some strategies for getting organized, so that we can start living and working to our full potential.

 

How to Meet a Deadline: Delivering Timely Results

Who doesn’t love a deadline? Anecdotal evidence suggests that the answer is, “Most of us, actually!”

Deadlines are the “bane” of many people’s working lives, and a source of relentless and worrying pressure. But they are important to almost any task and any role, and they are essential for the smooth running of your organization.

In this article we explore why deadlines matter, and we look at practical steps that you can take for meeting your own deadlines, and for supporting others to meet theirs.

 

Stakeholder Analysis: Winning Support for Your Projects

Have you ever found yourself working really hard on a project, only for it to “hit the buffers” simply because a powerful manager or influencer says “No?”

It can be extremely frustrating, particularly when you’re sure that your work would have delivered real results, if only you’d been allowed to continue… check out this article for tips on getting support for your projects.

 

Ethical Leadership: Doing the Right Thing

When people at the top of an organization make poor ethical choices the impact can be far reaching.

There are however many ethical leaders who do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons. They put their ethics before the bottom line – and research shows that this makes it more likely their teams will be loyal, dedicated and ethical, in return.

In this article, we’ll explore how you can raise the bar for yourself, your team, and your organization.

 

How to Manage an Insecure Employee

When employees lack self-confidence, it can be hard to get them to perform at their best. So how can you help them excel at their job? What kind of coaching should you provide? What’s the best way to boost their self-esteem? And how do you deal with your own frustration around their insecure behaviour?

 

What to Do When Personal and Professional Commitments Compete for Your Time

You’re double booked.

It’s not just one meeting scheduled over another. It’s something for your family at odds with a work commitment. These situations can trigger guilt and stress. Guilt because you feel like you’re letting others down — no matter what you decide, you will lose. And stress because you can’t literally be in two places at once.

“As a time management coach, I help working parents navigate these challenges on a daily basis. I’ve found that there are two different components that you must address to minimize both guilt and stress”. Find out more in this article.

 

When Solving Problems, Think About What You Could Do, Not What You Should Do

It will help you generate more creative solutions… read this article to find out more!

 

5 Behaviours of Leaders Who Embrace Change

Learn how to encourage your employees to take risks and experiment.

 

The Right Way to Respond to Negative Feedback

Feedback, as they say, is a gift. Research bears this out, suggesting that it’s a key driver of performance and leadership effectiveness. Negative feedback in particular can be valuable because it allows us to monitor our performance and alerts us to important changes we need to make. And indeed, leaders who ask for critical feedback are seen as more effective by superiors, employees, and peers, while those who seek primarily positive feedback are rated lower in effectiveness.

But processing and acting on negative feedback is not always easy. It can make us defensive, angry, and self-conscious, which subsequently impairs our effectiveness. What’s more, we can’t take all feedback we receive at face value. While critical feedback can frequently be given objectively and with the purest of motives, it can also be inaccurate and/or nefarious in nature: a co-worker who wants to throw us off our game; a boss who has completely unachievable expectations; an employee who is scared to speak truth to power; a friend who projects her own issues onto us. It’s hard to know what is real and what should be filtered out…

 

How to Be Happy: the GREAT DREAM Model: Practical Steps Toward a Happier Life

For many people, finding happiness is almost an obsession. Whether we’re reading self-help books, learning to meditate, or installing play equipment in our workplaces, our quest to be happy seems to take up more and more of our time and energy.

But what does happiness really consist of? And how do you get there? According to the GREAT DREAM model, happiness is really quite simple. It suggests that we can focus on a few key areas to enrich our lives and make them more rewarding.

In this article, we explore the 10 elements that make up the model, and explain how you can use it to bring more happiness to your own life.

 

Copyright © 2018 Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, All rights reserved. We thought you might find this new Library bulletin of interest Our mailing address is:

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Victoria Hospital

Blackpool, LancsFY3 8NR

United Kingdom

 

BLACKPOOL HEALTH LIBRARY: At the Heart of Quality Information on the Fylde Coast! Management Update from your Library: a collection of the recent news reports and updates!

 

How to Manage Hot Desking: Taking the Stress Out of Shared Workspaces

Companies that grow rapidly can soon run out of office space – yet they can still find themselves with empty desks most days, due to vacations, business travel, sickness, and remote or flexible working, for example.

So, why pay for more space if it won’t be used? Or, to look at it another way, how can you use your existing office space more productively?

An increasing number of organizations are responding to these questions with “hot desking.” If it’s managed with care, this workspace-sharing model can foster collaboration and creativity, and utilize your space more efficiently. But it’s not without its critics, and it can be a challenge for your people.

In this article, we look at the pros and cons of hot desking, and discuss how you can sidestep its potential pitfalls.

7 Ways to Use Office Politics Positively: Getting What You Want Without “Playing Dirty”

What do you think of when you hear the words “office politics”? Is it all about “backstabbing,” spreading malicious rumours, and “sucking up” to the right people? If so, you’ll likely want to stay as far away from it as you can!

But, like it or loathe it, office politics are a fact of life in any organization. And it is possible to promote yourself and your cause without compromising your values or those of your organization.

Practicing “good” politics enables you to further your and your team’s interests fairly and appropriately. And, being alert to the “bad” politics around you helps to avoid needless suffering while others take advantage.

In this article, we examine why workplace politics exist, and look at seven ways to “win” at office politics without sinking to the lowest standards of behaviour.

Bell and Hart’s Eight Causes of Conflict: Understanding the Causes of Workplace Tension

All of us are likely to experience conflict at work. Conflict can be useful, since it can push conflicting parties to grow and communicate, and it can improve conflicting ideas. However, this can only happen if we understand why the conflict is there in the first place. Once we’ve identified the root of the problem, we can take the right steps to resolve it.

In this article, we’ll look at eight common causes of conflict in the workplace, and we’ll explore how you can use them to manage conflict more effectively.

Stealth Innovation: Going Underground to Get Things Done

Have you ever presented a brilliant new idea to your boss, only to be told, “No, it’ll never work,” or “Sorry, too expensive”?

You’re disappointed, but not dissuaded. You’re still convinced that your organization would benefit from your idea, and you’re determined to prove it.

This is where stealth innovation can be useful: it allows you to explore the feasibility of an idea before you float it to the people “upstairs.” But working on a project without the “green light” from your boss can have serious risks, too.

In this article, we’ll explore how you can use stealth innovation responsibly and ethically. Also, we’ll discuss what you can do if you believe that one of your team members is operating “under the radar.”

How Humble Leadership Really Works

When you’re a leader — no matter how long you’ve been in your role or how hard the journey was to get there — you are merely overhead unless you’re bringing out the best in your employees. Unfortunately, many leaders lose sight of this.

The top-down type of leadership is outdated, and, more importantly, counterproductive. By focusing too much on control and end goals, and not enough on their people, leaders are making it more difficult to achieve their own desired outcomes.

The key, then, is to help people feel purposeful, motivated, and energized so they can bring their best selves to work. There are a number of ways to do this…

How to Get People to Accept a Tough Decision

This article discusses the dilemma of making tough decisions and helping those affected by your decisions to better accept them. Every leader has to make tough decisions that have consequences for their organizations, their reputation, and their career. The first step to making these decisions is understanding what makes them so hard.

The Best Leaders See Things That Others Don’t. Art Can Help!

Without ever intending it, experienced leaders often allow what they know to limit what they can imagine going forward; their knowledge can actually get in the way of innovation. Which is why, to summon the spirit of Proust, it’s so important for leaders to see their company and industry with fresh eyes — which means looking at their work in new ways.

 

Copyright © 2018 Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, All rights reserved. We thought you might find this new Library bulletin of interest Our mailing address is:

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Victoria Hospital

Blackpool, LancsFY3 8NR

United Kingdom

 

BLACKPOOL HEALTH LIBRARY: At the Heart of Quality Information on the Fylde Coast! Management Update from your Library: a collection of the recent news reports and updates!

 

Why People Lose Motivation — and What Managers Can Do to Help

At some point, every leader has dealt with a person — or, worse, a group of people — who has lost motivation. It’s frustrating, isn’t it? As much as we’ve been there ourselves, sometimes it’s hard to sympathize with others who are disengaged from work and unproductive as a result. Sometimes, we view their unhappiness as a bug in their mental makeup — and, therefore, we think they should be able to suck it up and snap out of it.

Although it’s easy to fall into this mind-set as a leader, this type of thinking is counterproductive and it ignores the underlying reasons why people lose their passion for what they do (or never find it to begin with).

In order to get at the crux of the problem, it’s crucial to understand that as humans we want to feel motivated and to find meaning in the things that we do…

 

How to Manage an Employee Who Cries Easily

Most managers feel uncomfortable when employees cry during business conversations. Many of us may recall a time we’ve cried at work, but for some people it’s not a rare occurrence. Some individuals seem to react excessively to disappointment or challenge, with repeated bouts of apparent sadness or fear accompanied by tears, shaking, or reddening. If you manage someone who tears up easily, you may find yourself leaving important topics or issues unaddressed to avoid upsetting them.

Some employees are quick to cry because they lack strong self-management skills; they may be embarrassed by their own emotionalism, and grateful for any advice you can offer on keeping a more even keel. Some cry as a form of deflection or manipulation; I’ve worked with a handful of people whose frequent crying served as a first line of defence against criticism. Of course, they may

also be handling a tough situation in their personal lives – from illness to difficult family situations. And perhaps the most positive reason for crying occurs when your employee trusts that you have the kind of boss-subordinate relationship where tears are nothing to hide or be ashamed of.

You can’t know what’s going on inside your employee’s head, or whether they cry because they trust you, are trying to manipulate you, or happen to be overwhelmed by personal issues outside of work. If the issue is personal, you may want to refer them to your HR department or your company EAP, so they can get some additional support. Regardless of the cause of their distress, though, you’ll need to find a way to work around – or through – their tears. These six steps will help you and your subordinate keep a humane and professional focus on the work that still needs to get done.

 

How Being a Workaholic Differs from Working Long Hours — and Why That Matters for Your Health

We generally assume that working too much is bad for our health. But what exactly is unhealthy about this is unclear. Is it working long hours that increases our risk of developing health issues? Or is it something else? We sought to unravel the difference between behaviour (working long hours) and mentality (a compulsion to work, or what we call workaholism).

 

How to Manage a Grieving Team Member: Supporting People in Times of Sadness

If you’ve experienced personal loss, you’ll know just how painful it can be. Perhaps you’ve suffered bereavement, broken up with your partner, or lost your house. Naturally, when events like these happen, emotions tend to take over and your priorities can change. Work is often the last thing you’ll want to think about.

Managing a grieving team member has its challenges, too. Should you act like nothing’s happened? Or, should you talk to him or her about it? But, what if you say the wrong thing? How do you respond if he gets angry or upset?

And then there are the practicalities to consider. How will his grief affect his work? Will he need to take time off? Will his workload need to be reduced? Will you need to arrange cover?

In this article, we’ll explore what grief is and how it can affect people. We’ll also look at strategies that you can use to ease the burden of work when someone in your team experiences personal loss.

 

This Wasn’t in My Job Description! Dealing With the Unexpected Reality of a New Role

Alix stared at her screen. Another spreadsheet. She was growing tired of seeing them, but this was what her new job seemed to consist of: reports, processes and administrative duties. She sighed.

Alix knew that her strengths lay in managing clients – in communicating face to face and solving problems. Those were the skills that she had expected to be using – and that her interviewers had assured her she would be using – when she was offered the role of client relationship manager. Form-filling was low down on her list of responsibilities.

Many people face a similar unhappy situation, finding themselves in jobs that aren’t what they thought they would be. Forty percent of those who left jobs in 2017 did so because they didn’t like what they were doing. And, for many more, the opportunity to use their existing skills was the key attraction of a new role.

In this article, we explore what you can do when the job that you do falls short of the role that you accepted.

 

Copyright © 2018 Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, All rights reserved. We thought you might find this new Library bulletin of interest Our mailing address is:

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Victoria Hospital

Blackpool, LancsFY3 8NR

United Kingdom

 

BLACKPOOL HEALTH LIBRARY: At the Heart of Quality Information on the Fylde Coast! Management Update from your Library: a collection of the recent news reports and updates!

 

How to Increase Your Influence at Work

To be effective in organizations today, you must be able to influence people. Your title alone isn’t always enough to sway others, nor do you always have a formal position. So, what’s the best way to position yourself as an informal leader? How do you motivate colleagues to support your initiatives and adopt your ideas? How can you become a go-to person that others look to for guidance and expert advice?

 

How to Fix the Most Soul-Crushing Meetings

Meetings are notoriously one of organizational life’s most insufferable realities. Better meeting techniques, like distributing agendas, holding stand-up meetings, or enforcing a no-device policy, are all well-intentioned practices. But none of them will salvage a meeting that shouldn’t be happening in the first place.

 

Power Can Corrupt Leaders. Compassion Can Save Them

Research of neuroscientist Sukhvinder Obhi, who has found that power impairs our mirror-neurological activity — the neurological function that indicates the ability to understand and associate with others. David Owen, a British physician and parliamentarian, has dubbed this phenomenon hubris syndrome, which he defines as a “disorder of the possession of power, particularly power which has been associated with overwhelming success, held for a period of years.”

Through our interviews, we heard variations of this time and again. It’s not that power makes people want to be less empathetic; it’s that taking on greater responsibilities and pressure can rewire our brains and, through no fault of our own, force us to stop caring about other people as much as we used to. But it does not have to be this way. Such rewiring can be avoided — and it can also be reversed. Based on our work with thousands of leaders, here are a few practical ways to enhance your compassion…

 

Thinking on Your Feet: Staying Cool and Confident Under Pressure

Whether you are put on the spot while attending a meeting, presenting a proposal, selling an idea, or answering questions after a presentation, articulating your thoughts in unanticipated situations is a skill. Thinking on your feet is highly coveted skill and when you master it, your clever and astute responses will instill immediate confidence in what you are saying.

When you can translate your thoughts and ideas into coherent speech quickly, you ensure your ideas are heard. You also come across as being confident, persuasive, and trustworthy.

Confidence is key when learning to think on your feet. When you present information, give an opinion or provide suggestions, make sure that you know what you are talking about and that you are well informed. This doesn’t mean you have to know everything about everything, but if you are reasonably confident in your knowledge of the subject, that confidence will help you to remain calm and collected even if you are put unexpectedly in the hot seat.

 

Win-Win Negotiation: Finding Solutions That Work for Everyone

Do you dread entering a negotiation? Do you worry that what you want will not match what the other person wants to give? Do you worry about having to “play hardball” and souring a good working relationship? After all, for someone to win, someone else has to lose, right? Well, not necessarily.

Chances are, you can find a solution that leaves all parties feeling like winners by adopting the aptly-named “win-win” approach to negotiation.

In this article, we examine the meaning of win-win negotiation, and we explore how you can apply the concept of “principled negotiation” within win-win, to build mutual respect and understanding while getting result that you both want.

 

Copyright © 2018 Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, All rights reserved. We thought you might find this new Library bulletin of interest Our mailing address is:

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Victoria Hospital

Blackpool, LancsFY3 8NR

United Kingdom

 

Six Thinking Hats: Looking at a Decision from All Points of View

What is your instinctive approach to decision making? If you’re naturally optimistic, then chances are you don’t always consider potential downsides. Similarly, if you’re very cautious or have a risk-averse outlook, you might not focus on opportunities that could open up.

Often, the best decisions come from changing the way that you think about problems, and examining them from different viewpoints.

“Six Thinking Hats” can help you to look at problems from different perspectives, but one at a time, to avoid confusion from too many angles crowding your thinking.

It’s also a powerful decision-checking technique in group situations, as everyone explores the situation from each perspective at the same time.

Six Thinking Hats was created by Edward de Bono, and published in his 1985 book of the same name. You can now find it in a new edition.

It forces you to move outside your habitual thinking style, and to look at things from a number of different perspectives. This allows you to get a more rounded view of your situation.

You can often reach a successful solution or outcome from a rational, positive viewpoint, but it can also pay to consider a problem from other angles. For example, you can look at it from an emotional, intuitive, creative or risk management viewpoint. Not considering these perspectives could lead you to underestimate people’s resistance to your plans, fail to make creative leaps, or ignore the need for essential contingency plans.

In this article, we explore how to use the Six Thinking Hats technique, and show an example of how it can work.

 

Brainstorming: Generating Many Radical, Creative Ideas

How often have you used brainstorming to solve a problem? Chances are, you’ve used it at least once, even if you didn’t realize it.

For decades, people have used brainstorming to generate ideas, and to come up with creative solutions to problems. However, you need to use brainstorming correctly for it to be fully effective.

In this article, we’ll look at what it is, why it’s useful, and how to get the best from it.

 

8 Ways to Add Value to Meetings: Making a Strong Contribution

Have you ever come out of a meeting feeling that you didn’t perform at your best? Maybe you forgot to bring data to back up a colleague, or felt that you didn’t get your point across, or just sat in silence for long periods.

Meetings don’t have to be like this and, with the right approach, it’s possible to make valuable contributions to meetings, and so get more from them. In this article, we’ll explore eight practical ways that you can do this.

 

Personal SWOT Analysis: Making the Most of Your Talents and Opportunities

You are most likely to succeed in life if you use your talents to their fullest extent. Similarly, you’ll suffer fewer problems if you know what your weaknesses are, and if you manage these weaknesses so that they don’t matter in the work you do.

So how you go about identifying these strengths and weaknesses, and analyzing the opportunities and threats that flow from them? SWOT Analysis is a useful technique that helps you do this.

 

Why We Should Be Disagreeing More at Work

Disagreements are an inevitable, normal, and healthy part of relating to other people. There is no such thing as a conflict-free work environment. You might dream of working in a peaceful utopia, but it wouldn’t be good for your company, your work, or you. In fact, disagreements — when managed well — have lots of positive outcomes. Here are a few…

 

What to Do When You Don’t Feel Valued at Work

It’s no fun to toil away at a job where your efforts go unnoticed. How can you highlight your achievements without bragging about your work? Who should you talk to about feeling underappreciated? And if the situation doesn’t change, how long should you stay?

 

How to Get Out of a Meeting You Know Will Waste Your Time

You can often predict which meetings will be unproductive from the moment you receive the invitation. There’s the “team update” where you spend two hours listening to a rundown of how everyone spent their week, or the “planning meeting” where you hash out picayune details that should have been handled elsewhere, or the “brainstorming session” where extroverts shout out random ideas.

Some of these you can dodge, but others are much harder to escape — especially if the invitation comes from your boss, a key client, or an influential colleague. Here are five ways to get out of a meeting that you know will be unproductive, or at least to limit the collateral damage to your productivity and schedule.

BLACKPOOL HEALTH LIBRARY: At the Heart of Quality Information on the Fylde Coast! Management Update from your Library: a collection of the recent news reports and updates!

Great Corporate Strategies Thrive on the Right Amount of Tension

After expending considerable effort on formulating a strategy, most executives would like to see their company’s strategic plans fully executed. Deviations from the strategic plan are often assumed to be detrimental to corporate performance. However, compliance with the strategy doesn’t necessarily correlate directly to performance.

The gap between strategy and the execution of that strategy is often referred to as “strategic dissonance.” We like to call it “strategic stress.” The “Yerkes-Dodson Law,” which has been used in research that examines the relationship between stress and individual performance, shows that stress increases performance up to a certain point, but not beyond that point. In a similar vein, “strategic stress” can improve your company’s performance – up until a point.

 

How Busy Working Parents Can Make Time for Mindfulness

 

It seems everywhere you look these days someone is touting the benefits of mindfulness — a practice that Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, describes simply as “paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.” Research shows that people who practice mindfulness are less stressed, more focused and better able to regulate their emotions.

But, if you’re a busy working parent, how do you build mindfulness into an already-packed day? Those of us with kids and jobs often feel tired and rushed. We’re constantly multi-tasking, juggling personal and professional responsibilities, and feeling stressed about all we can’t get done. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, 56 percent of working parents say they find it difficult to balance their time between work and family. Though I now counsel others on how to break this cycle, I can certainly relate to it.

Here’s the solution that I came up with and now recommend to others…

Executives Fail to Execute Strategy Because They’re Too Internally Focused

Experts have opined for decades on the reasons behind the spectacular failure rates of strategy execution. In 2016, it was estimated that 67% of well-formulated strategies failed due to poor execution. There are many explanations for this abysmal failure rate, but a 10-year longitudinal study on executive leadership conducted by my firm showed one clear reason. A full 61% of executives told us they were not prepared for the strategic challenges they faced upon being appointed to senior leadership roles. It’s no surprise, then, that 50%–60% of executives fail within the first 18 months of being promoted or hired.

Appointing that many unprepared leaders into roles directly responsible for crafting and executing strategy only fuels the risk of executional failure. Here are four of the most common signs that an executive is likely to fail when attempting to bring the organization’s strategy to life.

Managing Your Emotions at Work: Controlling Your Feelings… Before They Control You

We’ve all been in one of “those” situations before. You know… when your favorite project is cancelled after weeks of hard work; when a customer snaps at you unfairly; when your best friend (and co-worker) is laid off suddenly; or your boss assigns you more work when you’re already overloaded.

In your personal life, your reaction to stressful situations like these might be to start shouting, or to go hide in a corner and feel sorry for yourself for a while. But at work, these types of behavior could seriously harm your professional reputation, as well as your productivity.

Stressful situations are all too common in a workplace that’s facing budget cuts, staff layoffs, and department changes. It may become harder and harder to manage your emotions under these circumstances, but it’s even more important for you to do so. After all, if management is forced into making more layoffs, they may choose to keep those who can handle their emotions, and work well under pressure. As the above quote shows, no matter what the situation is, you’re always free to choose how you react to it.

So, how can you become better at handling your emotions, and “choosing” your reactions to bad situations? In this article, we look at the most common negative emotions experienced in the workplace – and how you can manage them productively.

Empathy at Work: Developing Skills to Understand Other People

Many of us know people who have reached a certain point in their careers because of excellent technical abilities – but they somehow don’t get along with team members, because they’re less accomplished in their people skills.

This might be due to the insensitive manner in which they ask co-workers for things, the way they never seem to listen to what others say, or their intolerance for other methods of working.

Workers with poor people skills can often find themselves in the middle of unnecessary conflict. This can be exhausting and stressful for all concerned, and it can destroy even the best laid work plans.

Many people are confident that they can develop new technical skills and knowledge through training and experience. However, there’s a common belief that “you are how you are” when it comes to “soft” skills (interacting with other people) – and that there’s little or nothing you can do about it.

Fortunately, this is far from true. And a great place to start improving your soft skills is by developing the ability to empathize with others.

Using Affirmations: Harnessing Positive Thinking

“I’m never going to be able to do this job; I’m just not smart enough.”

“I wish I could stick up for myself at work. In every meeting, I let the others walk over my ideas. I’m never going to get ahead.”

Many of us have negative thoughts like these, sometimes frequently. When we think like this, our confidence, mood and outlook can become negative, too.

The problem with negative thoughts is that they can become self-fulfilling prophecies. We talk ourselves into believing that we’re not good enough. And, as a result, these thoughts drag down our personal lives, our relationships, and our careers.

But, if we deliberately do the opposite and use positive thoughts about ourselves, the effect can be just as powerful but far more helpful.

In this article, we’ll explore how you can use affirmations to drive positive change in your career, and in your life in general.

 

Copyright © 2017 Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, All rights reserved. We thought you might find this new Library bulletin of interest Our mailing address is:

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Victoria Hospital

Blackpool, LancsFY3 8NR

United Kingdom