I’ve always thought of ‘Positive Thinking’ as some psychobabble that I don’t have time for! I think positive thoughts and smile at people…what more do you want! But, I have to confess, reading Harvard Business Review’s recent post – The Powerful Effect of Noticing Good Things at Work – helped me understand the impact positive memories can have on stress. It also made me think how mangers play a big part in this on those around them. Are we installing positive or negatives memories on our teams?

I’ve described the importance of observing in a manager’s role, this helps building habits of spotting anything different or new around you. Even noticing a tiniest thing could have a positive influence on someone else. Does someone have a new shirt or haircut, did someone in your team go out of there way to help someone else, or did someone pro-actively make… Continue reading →

When I first became a manager I didn’t think too much of it, it was the right career progression for me. I’ve had a variety of managers throughout my career and felt ready to give it a try…“bring it on” I thought! I jumped straight into line management duties on top of other team leading work without thinking much about what the actual role should involve. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the emotional impact a management role has!

Some days you never get going, inundated with requests (holidays, sick days, doctors, dentists, sick children, no show nannies, lost dogs, dead cats, plumbers, house moves, broken laptops…etc., etc!), it can be relentless at times. But this is all ‘stuff’ a manager needs to handle in an appropriate way to keep everything moving. It can be emotionally draining and usually impacts the work we need to do!

There’s plenty of books… Continue reading →

Blogging has been on my mind for many years, if I wrote all the excuses I used down it would make an impressive list! We all have personal obstacles in our lives, some we create ourselves, as managers we not only need to tackle our own but help our team to tackle theirs. Identifying them is often the biggest challenge as we often put up a self denial barrier stopping it being considered. This blog is more about my own obstacles though than others.

What could I say that would really make a difference to anyone? I certainly don’t doubt my ability as a manager, but the little voice in my head says no one will care what you think. There are managers out there with popular blogs covering everything any manager would need to know. Look at Rands in his blog, what can I say on top of… Continue reading →