So, one of my clients is coming out of lockdown. What have we learned from the last five months? The last five months have been a scary time for a lot of people around the world. Some of us are grieving lost family members. Others are facing direct challenges to employment and well-being. One of…
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Moving from the freedom to gather to a world of screens and isolation is a challenge for many. Contactless karate hasn’t really been a thing! Not many folk are wearing a full Samurai mask, thankfully, just restricting themselves to blue cotton surgical masks. Getting the Covid 19 closedown in context, our experience in JKA Scotland…
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Creating virtual dojos in a period of days was a challenge successfully accepted!
This is unlikely to be the first post-Covid 19 musings you will have read. In my defence, I’ve been using full fat Teams at work for about two years now since my employer, an Edinburgh-based tech company, went all in on Teams and dropped Skype for Business. So my views have been formed over a…
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Like most of the world, I’m working from home. But at least I’ve had a good four years practice at working remotely. In my last two full time gigs, I’ve worked a split pattern of days on site with the client, vital touch down days in the organisation’s offices, and days at home in my…
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So I was asked to speak at the Housing Scotland 2018 Conference on reaching out to people to get them involved in the use of digital pieces of kit. This followed work I’ve done in Haddington on getting funding for a literacy expert to spend time in our housing offices, being there for people to…
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So I recently managed to spend some time catching up on leadership skills. This post summarises some of the zingers which have stayed with me. Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you respond to it. Work is a negotiation. Someone wants you to do something – make a counter offer with a smile.…
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You might be a mum or dad at home but you shouldn’t be forced to play that role at work. But we all get comfortable with certain roles – and sometimes the people you work with like playing the teenage child who will just sit back in project meetings and let mum and dad get…
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I recently went on a leadership course with some insightful and astute individuals, including a chap called Robin Yourston. Robin is a career engineer who came out of the IBM culture and has been stretching himself through research into neuroscience and I was fortunate enough to be challenged by him. Robin had a really good…
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John Kotter is the undoubted star of the change literature. Kotter put forward 8 key points in achieving lasting change. In my experience, he’s spot on. The Eight You need a sense of urgency. Also known as “never waste a good crisis”. Or you can expect references to “burning platforms” from people trying to ramp…
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