Rather than maintain two blogs our main blog articles have moved to our sister company site at

http://www.causerelatedlearning.co.uk 

Why not take a look.

 Business planning is critical - so why do so few businesses have a written plan?

 How to help your message to be received and understood.

 In a speech at HR Magazine's employee engagement breakfast earlier today, David MacLeod warned that HR has not won the employee engagement argument as yet. (see article at http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/news/bulletin/weeklyupdatebulletin/article/1049738/?DCMP=EMC-DailyNewsAlert

Whilst those of us working in the HR arena have a strong belief that the evidence linking levels of engagement to performance is clear, many managers and directors of businesses have still not successfully made the connection in a way that actually engages them (ironic really). HR professionals must take some responsibility for that fact.

The evidence is all around. Last week I had cause to help a friend who was having quite a bit of trouble with her energy supplier. I have experience in the...

7 simple strategies for opening a presentation.

 I recently sat through a number of middle manager business presentations and, as is typical, virtually every presentation had an agenda as part of the introduction. I suspect this is brought on by people following the old adage ‘tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them’.  Now this strategy is not without merit. You will experience it most evenings if you watch a TV news, but there is a key difference. The news will give you a headlines summary at the beginning, the story content and a headline summary at the end. The business presenter will frequently give you a bland list of topics at the beginning, a storyless load of facts and data in the middle and a dull topic summary at the end (if you have stayed awake that long). For some reason, many business presenters feel compelled to share their process with us, which tends to make it more like ‘tell them how you will bore them; bore them; tell them how you just bored them. Add a number of word heavy bullet point slides and...

 The Employee Engagement Network has just released an ebook entitled Employee Engagement in Six Words. See my contribution on page 12 at

http://www.davidzinger.com/wp-content/uploads/Employee-Engagement-Six-Word-ebook.pdf

 www.hrmagazine.co.uk/news/bulletin/weeklyupdatebulletin/article/1035244/

It is a question that has cropped up on a number of occasions recently, and one that could be answered in many different ways, whether considering business coaching or personal coaching? 

Coaches come in many types and with potentially wide ranging approaches, however, in my experience there are two fundamental measures that start you on the road to answering this question.

RESULTS - typically someone is using a coach to help them achieve different results in some aspect of their work or life. Whilst nothing guarantees success in a coaching relationship, a great starting point is considering if progress is being made in achieving the identified results or outcomes. 

OWNERSHIP - a more subtle test is to consider where the ownership is sitting within the relationship. A very common trap that many coaches fall into is taking far too much ownership of the issues and potential solutions/actions. This is frequently an accidental side effect of great intention. In their willingness to 'help' and...

 Re-posting of an article from HR Magazine's news digest.