One of the most difficult things I have found and indeed many of my clients find, is to deal with the pervasive influence of difficult people in our lives.  This may be people who still feature in our lives or people who once featured, but although they may have moved on,  we haven’t for whatever…

I started today like everyone else. Listening to the weather forecast for the next few days and anticipating the possibility of the first heavy snowfall of the winter. Or not. I don’t know about you but ever since the Michael Fish episode in 1987, I’ve never quite trusted the accuracy of forecasts and wonder how…

In Scotland and Northern England there is a tradition at New Year of ‘First Footing’ that suggests that the first person to enter a house after the stroke of midnight, brings prosperity, favour, food and good cheer.  The tradition even suggests what the person should look like to maximise the good fortune. Whatever the origins,…

How many of us start off our businesses with a higher positive intent believing how we will be satisfying a need for individuals and organisations, something to make their lives enriched through our involvement. How many of us have emotionally felt so many hits of rejection along the path of business development that sales has …

As we look on with amazement at the implosion of the upper management of the BBC and the speed at which it happened, I’ve been reflecting on some of the dynamics and wonder what lessons can be learned about leadership and how organisations deal with important issues or problems. As a young child I was…

The human capital investment that is made in a business often centres on the key people that are brought into important roles in that organisation.  The risk of choosing the right people for an organisation can indeed be high and the loss if things go wrong can be significant. ProAssign ACT™ programmes are a range of…

Change is being driven through many organisations as government and businesses look to add value and to secure a greater Return on Investment.  Change is being expected from all levels of organisations and individuals to maximise performance and to deliver new and improved outcomes. Whether it is in the public or in the private sector,…

How often do we come across the word ‘Innovation’ in today’s business speak? Innovation is being seen as the next progressive step for growth, after cost-reduction or business re-engineering. In the last recession, only companies that pro-actively invested in innovatively managing emergent needs of the market through new products had come out on top. Organisations…

I had been thinking for some time about how I could pull the themes of this blog together, as they recur with increasing frequency in people that I coach and train, both in personal performance and in organisations. Christmas gave me the opportunity to see this variety of positive and negative people at close range…