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Showing posts from January, 2013

Getting started with delegation

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The Art of Delegation I don't often blog about management tips, but when I talk to experienced managers and leaders about what challenges them in their working lives one of the consistent responses I get (and one that is often reinforced when speaking to their teams) is that they have trouble delegating work. This always surprises me. Not only that, but everyone involved seems to accept this weakness with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders as if to say, 'oh well, it is just the way they are'.     When I question them about this attitude. A common response by those self-confessed bad delegators is to justify the lack of concern by stating that they avoid delegation because they believe that passing the job to somebody else takes too long. How many times have you heard people around you say “ It’s quicker to do it myself ”? Often, this is offered as a justification for them choosing to perform a piece of work that they know could have been performed by someone else

Critical Incident Timeline. Are you prepared?

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Understanding how a critical incident develops can help us to know what to expect when an incident happens for real. So far this year there have already been a number of high profile critical incidents affecting organisations. Most recently the escalation of the Algerian hostage crisis has been a major news story. Last week, the first ever helicopter crash in London sparked a critical incident that, whilst more local in impact, was headline news and impacted organisations caught up in the maelstrom of unfolding events.   Studying how the news unfolded in this stand alone tragic accident can help us to assess the realism of the timelines in our own continuity exercises and critical incident simulations. In this blog post I present a timeline for the helicopter incident and briefly discuss critical incidents from an organisational impact perspective. Building the timeline What I have done below is to build a timeline of the helicopter crash incident, as best as I have been able

Introducing Stephen Jarrett, Associate

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I am delighted to announce that Stephen Jarrett has become an Associate of Poppyfish People Development. Stephen Jarrett is a management consultant, HR and training specialist with over 25 years experience in organisational culture, design, strategy, people development, facilitation, psychometrics and life coaching. An expert in soft skill training, facilitation, HR and coaching, Steve has worldwide experience in many industry sectors and is used to taking a whole organisation approach - from top teams right the way through to the all important tea trolley! Steve brings his own engaging style and an impressive depth of experience to the Poppyfish portfolio. He believes that " learning is the greatest game in life and the most fun; it is the only game worth playing, we are taught this as children and so why can't we take their philosophy into the world of adult learning and development? " I very much enjoy working with Steve and am pleased to be able to draw hi