National Learning Institute

The difficulty with learning how to be a manager is probably not to do with "management" per se, but the way the learning is presented tand the different ways in which we all like to learn.

Training courses! The most recent had been termed "Management for Senior Officers" and had been a minor disaster – all psychology and how to be nice to...

Four tips for getting a better deal in negotiations.

When you left home for work this morning, did you feel ready to face the day knowing that you were going to have a number of successful negotiations? Chances are, the word "negotiation" never entered your head. Perhaps it should have!

We often think of negotiation as a formal process...

Four simple skills; when and how to apply them.

Do you need to have:Your manager give you more credit for the work that you do?Your partner acknowledge that your ideas are really worth listening to?Your children accept more responsibility?Your friends take you seriously when you really mean it?Your customers buy more from you?Your suppliers...

A great tip for effective time management!

You receive a phone call from the CEO who asks whether you'd be interested in taking on a special assignment. In this assignment you would report directly to the CEO and participate in making some of the important strategic decisions facing the company. This assignment would provide you personally...

Four steps to take on the pathway to success ...

During my career as a manager and since I myself became a consultant in 1987, I have had many colleagues and acquaintances move into the consultancy profession. Sometimes this move was by choice as a genuine career move.

In the late 90s however, the proliferation of consultants was...

Does your behaviour impact those around you?Can you change it?

Some years ago, I read a report by Spiro Zavos in the sports columns of my SMH newspaper, which described the behaviour of a football coach during a very tense finals game. The antics of the losing coach gave a very good insight into why his team did not win and in fact loses many...

Many organisations today are looking to increase their bottom line by paying their people to improve individual performance.  Do such policies really work?  Are there any downsides?

I recently read a disturbing report in the daily newspaper about an air crash in Indonesia. The article (in the Sydney Morning Herald, 12/4/07) read in part...

Six steps to make yourself and others feel better at work.

We all want to be associated with a winner, be it a winning person, a winning team, a worthwhile cause or a successful organisation. We all have sports people, teams, actors or artists that we consider "ours". When they do well, we bask in their reflected glory.

It's the same at work...