Wellbeing at Work is critical to ensuring your employees are engaged. Since the onset of COVID-19, our recent research shows “60% of employees in Ireland are feeling more stressed” along with “50% of employees feeling increasingly disconnected from their teams and their organisations”. We are in danger of seeing employee burnout in the very near future and it is of great concern.
SELF CARE FOR INDIVIDUALS
Self–care begins at an individual level but is usually the first thing to get sacrificed during challenging times. Developing self-care practices will help build self-awareness, resilience, and enable individuals to manage future issues themselves. Small changes can have a big impact in the long run. If you are open about self-care, your teams and organisation will follow your lead.
We support people to build practical solutions and develop self-care plans that you are fully in control of. Setting realistic goals and practicing consistently, guarantees better performance.
Bringing the team together is the start. Inspiring, motivating, and truly leading them is the constant challenge especially during uncertain or challenging times.
We go far beyond team-building events. These may deliver a quick fix of positivity and dynamism, but this rarely translates into a sustained change in the workplace. Instead, we maximise team effectiveness by identifying and building on your team’s current strengths. We instill skills and create a plan for high performance and long-term success.
Coaching in the workplace improves communications, increases employee engagement, and improves individual performance. Coaching helps people get clear on their goals, understand their challenges better, discover new ways of thinking, reduce feelings of stress, and, ultimately, step into their potential.
We guide you through how to help individuals/others identify their future aspirations, current challenges, any barriers they face, and what actions they need to take to achieve their potential. Learn how to coach others and gain practical learnings to improve themselves.
These are competency assessments in which employees receive anonymous feedback from varying working relationships such as; managers, colleagues, team members, and customers.
The 360-degree feedback approach works by identifying performance gaps and developing self-awareness, confidence and motivation. Helping create stronger and more engaged individuals and teams.
Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work with people in some capacity. The consequences of burnout are potentially very serious on your employees and leaders.
Using diagnostics and reports we can measure individual and team burnout and the likely causes. We develop collaboratively practical, employee, and team centred solutions that work over the longer term.
As we move deeper into January, many of us are revisiting the intentions we have set and reflecting on lessons from the past. Here is a surprising thought to reshape your perspective: negativity. Often avoided or suppressed, negativity can serve as an unexpected yet powerful...
We know that true leadership requires more than knowledge and technical skills—it demands courage. Courage is essential for growing strong, impactful leadership at every level. Knowledge equips leaders to understand what to do, but it’s courage that drives them to act. Without courage, even the best plans and...
Research suggests that many leaders operate with a proving mindset rather than an improving mindset, often due to ingrained habits and systemic factors. A study highlighted by Harvard Business Publishing noted that leaders frequently overestimate their competence, which leads to an overemphasis on defending their...
Root causes for why teams fail – 5 dysfunctions • Absence of trust...unwilling to be vulnerable within the team. • Fear of conflict...seeking artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate. • Lack of commitment...feigning buy-in for group decisions creates ambiguity throughout the organisation. • Avoidance of accountability...avoiding calling out peers on counterproductive behavior which sets low standards. • Inattention to results focusing on ego, personal success, and status before team success.
In the fast-paced and ever-evolving landscape of modern workplaces, the concept of psychological safety has gained significant traction. Coined by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, psychological safety refers to an environment where individuals feel comfortable expressing themselves, taking risks, and contributing their ideas without fear of...
The Rational Defensive Continuum helps you to assess your emotional reactions and identify ways to manage or control these more effectively.
The GROW Model – originally developed by Graham Alexander, Alan Fine, and Sir John Whitmore is the coaching framework most commonly used by Managers to coach their employees; improve performance, solve problems, make better decisions, learn new skills, and reach their career goals. The...
Effective leaders use the Skill Will Matrix to take stock of where individuals in their team are and how they can use this to optimise performance. If you fail to take stock, or your evaluation of where individuals are is in incorrect, your leadership approach may not match, which in turn can affect performance.
One of the challenges facing leaders and managers is how best to support employee development in order to improve performance. When it comes to regular development conversations the options include teaching, mentoring and coaching. So, which one to choose?
How would you assess your ability to hold others accountable? According to the Workplace Accountability Study, 82% of the 40,000 surveyed admitted to either attempting and failing or outright avoiding this responsibility – quite alarming! What implications does this have for leaders striving to...
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, creating a workplace where employees feel safe to express themselves without fear of retribution is more critical than ever. This concept, known as psychological safety, is a key driver of innovation, engagement, and overall company success. What is Psychological...
In a high-performing team, ‘healthy conflict’ may sound like a paradox, but it’s far from it. Ask yourself: what happens when you don’t have conflict on a team? There are many risks; stagnation of creativity, groupthink, simmering tension and missed opportunities for growth. Further,...
Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to understand and manage our own emotions, as well as the emotions of others. This skill is becoming increasingly recognised as a critical component of effective leadership and management in the business world – and a reliable predictor...
The arrival of Covid-19 induced a shift from on-site to remote work. This shift changed how and where we work. An amalgamation of the office-based work before the pandemic, and Covid induced flexible, remote practices has given birth to the future of work; the hybrid approach.
As leaders, we sometimes hold back from providing negative feedback. The EEC model helps you to structure constructive feedback to enable your team to perform at their best. It ensures that the feedback is clear, honest and open.
Giving effective feedback is an essential leadership skill, one that is regularly dreaded. Employees need to know if their performance is what their leaders expect from them and, if not, they need to know how to improve. The challenge with giving feedback is that it’s focused purely on past actions and not on the future.
Nobody likes doing Performance reviews - especially now virtually. Tips for managers on how to best approach these virtual performance review conversations?
Arguably the most widely referenced thought leader and researcher in the field of curiosity is Todd Kashdan. Kashdan defines curiosity as the recognition, pursuit, and desire to explore novel, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous events. This almost sounds like a description of a pandemic! This should...
Emotional Contagion is one’s ability to influence the emotions and behaviors of others. This happens between people and is especially prevalent where people know each other very well and teams who have worked together for a long time.
Covid-19 has challenging all of us and it is vital that people managers and senior leaders can identify warning signs of stress and support each team member at an individual level.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) updated its definition of Burnout in 2019 and for the first time described it as a workplace syndrome “Burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. “ Given the impact of COVID-19, this...
Our recent survey reveals that 60% of employees in Ireland are feeling more stressed since the onset of Covid-19, with 67% of women reporting increased levels of stress compared with 45% of men.
The report highlights the key findings from our survey and provides critical insights into the work policies, practices, and management approaches needed to engage in a new world of work.
Everyone’s triggers are different, and there are innumerable reasons why someone reacts and behaves defensively. The problem with being defensive is that once triggered, our natural stress response takes over and we become even more defensive.
On the Rational Defensive Triangle, we describe how when triggered, we can become defensive. The defensive state leads to diminished awareness and diminished choice, and in an extreme defensive state ‘up the triangle’, we can literally switch to ‘autopilot’, as the amygdala hijacks our brain’s emotional control.
A frozen screen, a barking dog, kids screaming, heavy breathing…. sound familiar? Since the beginning of the Covid_19 pandemic, we have been dependant on video conferencing tools such as Zoom, Hangouts, Skype to help stay connected on a business and personal level. However, too much...
Coaching is ever-evolving. 5 tips for managers and leaders looking to ‘coach in the moment’, ask before they tell, and have better coaching conversations.
Trust is hard won and easily lost. It's a two-way engagement and the foundation for better relationships and collaboration.
On Thursday March 12th I facilitated my last face to face programme with a Senior Leadership Team. The evening before I had a pint in the hotel bar and watched Liverpool crash out of the Champions League. There was an air of nervousness about COVID-19...
In the current situation, many of you are investing in Virtual Learning. However, not all forms of virtual learning are the same.
We are experiencing a global crisis resulting in millions of people working from home, many for the first time. You may be sitting at home right now feeling confused, overwhelmed and anxious. You are not alone, and these emotions are a very common reaction to...
Background: Carrolls Irish Gifts is a leading Irish retailer of clothing, jewellery, souvenirs and gift products. Established in 1982, the business currently employs around 400 staff across 17 stores in Ireland, with plans to open further stores in new locations. It launched an online store...
There’s a dirty little secret in leadership development that many people involved know about, but don’t often speak about. The vast majority of leadership development programmes don’t work. Yes, you read that right, most programmes simply fail to achieve their objectives. This is despite the fact that 80% of companies viewed leadership development as a high priority in a recent 2019 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report.
We know that Leadership is important. But do we really understand what it takes to be a great leader? More importantly are we willing to dig deep, to do the work on ourselves, to benefit the organisation?
Many organisations today are struggling to attract and retain top talent. Diversity and Inclusion is an increasing priority and organisations are now starting to see this as a critical Talent Management issue. There are significant benefits of having a more diverse workforce including; innovation, collaboration and productivity.
Gender equality in the workplace is one of the most significant issues facing employers right now. Most companies recognise the need for gender-balanced teams, especially at the top of the organisation, but some can struggle to understand the best way to achieve this balance. Here,...
We all operate along a continuum between rational and defensive and rational behaviour. When we’re feeling rational, we feel relaxed and positive. When our defences are triggered, we start to become less flexible, emotionally and physically. Everyone’s triggers are different.
Authentic is defined as being “of undisputed origin and not a copy; genuine.” There has been considerable hype and focus on authentic leadership in recent years but many Leaders remain confused about what it is and why you should pay attention to it.
Mindfulness is more than meditation. A common question we get asked is how mindfulness works or is it just a hype? Last week was Mental Health Awareness week and with huge demands and pressure today in the workplace what better time to practice and learn about mindfulness.
In navigating the Diversity and Inclusion minefield, we need to be aware that we can be overly focused on difference and not enough on the common work purpose, goals and outcomes we share with others and on teams.
We’ve reached the final blog of our Trust series. Previously, we discussed in times of organisational change – Trust changes everything and how to effectively manage resistance to change.
The use of Technology in Learning and Development is changing rapidly. High performing Learning and Development departments understand this and take a blended approach to learning using the right technology for the right situations. According to the American Society of Training and Development’s 2013 Learning &...
Educating your employees on your financials will not make accountants out of them but it will definitely help them to become more engaged and effective in their roles. Many organisations do a very good job in developing and communicating their vision, mission and values. They...
How many of you see the old woman? How many of you see the young woman? If I ask these same questions again in a month’s time the chances are that the person you saw first a month ago will be the same person you...
Good translators are well worth their price for important multi-lingual communications, but for everyday interactions with a multi-national team you can remove confusion at the source by making your global communications globally understandable. I recently translated English into English for a Mexican retail sales trainer...
All draw on their experience and common sense when confronted by those that haven’t yet wised up. I was lucky enough to be in Cardiff when Munster won their won their 2nd Heineken cup in 2008. During the after match celebrations in Bristol one of...
There are no guarantees in strategy execution. The Real truth is that the oft-quoted 90% strategy execution failure rate might be right. The origin of this statistic is unclear although most cite the 2008 Kaplan and Norton book The Execution Premium as their source. While this statistic is debatable, what...
Increasing employee is easy! Just ask them for their ideas and implement the most cost effective options. The best and most effective way to do this is the World Café approach. I have just returned from facilitating a 2-day World Café event for a global...
