Blogs & Articles

The Change Model is a framework for any change programme which is seeking to achieve transformational, sustainable change. The model has eight elements that should be considered when leading change:

To become an effective leader you need to be skilled in both giving praise and criticism. While praise is generally easier to give it can be far more challenging for managers to offer negative feedback to a colleague or member of their team.

What makes a good listener? There are a thousand and one training courses available to us that will teach us the many skills required of a good listener. All will no doubt be full of good stuff and they are often combined with other forms of outgoing communication skills such as use of words, pace, pitch, tone and of course body language etc. However, this piece will focus purely on listening as a skill or indeed a craft and assess whether everything that we have been taught is actually being put into practise. As evidence would seem to suggest that the nature of listening appears to be slowly changing in its very essence.

NHS Productivity Keeping up with the demands is challenging, however, it is suggested that rethinking how to attain greater productivity and the way this is measured, may alleviate some of the pressures. Productivity is a simple comparison between the outputs produced by the NHS i.e. the amount and quality of care provided, with the inputs used to produce them i.e. staff, equipment, drugs clinical supplies etc. Improved productivity can be achieved through efficiency and cost measures or alternatively by getting better value from the existing budget.

The 70 / 20 /10 principle is well known across the learning and development community as being a great blend of professional training, support and coaching from key influences around the business and learning whilst you work.

Maybe we’re slow to pick up on new acronyms. Sometimes they just pass us by and we’re doing them without realising. The latest, seen on an e-learning blog, is something we have been offering for years.

You often hear the phrase “Death by PowerPoint”, it is generally the go-to tool whenever you are tasked with giving a presentation. The issue when the audience switches off to a presentation with lots of detail given by slides isn’t necessarily that the tool is being used in the first place – PowerPoint is a great starting place for planning a presentation – it’s just that the presenter becomes too reliant on that format and too predictable.

Microlearning can be defined as delivering content to learners in small, discrete chunks. Where there is a library of content available, the learner is in control of what and when they’re learning. For a long time, this has been referred to as “bite-sized’ or “snackable” learning as it’s easily digestable and fits in with busy scheduled.

What is coaching? Coaching is a style of management in which the manager encourages people to reach their full potential by encouraging self-belief and self-development. Self-belief gives people the drive to achieve their potential. Self-development gives them the means.

Coaching and guidance by the line manager is a fundamental learning activity and it’s worth noting that the CIPD’s Who Learns at Work? survey found that only 21% had received one-to-one coaching from their line manager in the previous year. Without support to apply or consolidate, 60% of learned knowledge and skill stops being applied on the job within 90 days from the end of the learning.

For more and more of us the prospect of working remotely is becoming a stark reality for many and varied reasons. It could be that the commute to work is becoming more onerous with busier roads, a change in job role or personal circumstances or indeed space starts getting tight in the office which often happens in a thriving business.

What is development? Development is improving your performance. It is different from learning. Learning is either knowing something new or acquiring a new skill. Development is behaving differently and better. You can learn without developing although you can't develop without learning. Learning is about improving your capacity whereas development is about improving your performance.