There are many strategies for prioritising but, if you look carefully, you will see that they all boil down to the same thing. The simple truth at the heart of prioritising is: Do the most important task first. So let’s look at that in more detail. If you want to be truly productive then you need to prioritise effectively. It is a constant decision-making process, working out what to do next. This episode looks at a few different ways to ensure you are putting first things first and getting your...
Mar 25, 2024•5 min•Season 6Ep. 5
A mission statement expresses what we are striving for; it should be a clear and concise statement of what success looks like. Being busy is not enough; it counts for nothing if there is not some deeper purpose. We need to know exactly what we are trying to achieve. I learnt the true importance of a mission statement in the army. For any military task, there will be a set of orders, often long and detailed, which tries to plan for every foreseeable eventuality. A really good mission or success s...
Mar 18, 2024•4 min•Season 6Ep. 4
A vision statement is a picture or dream of a better future. This is important as dreams can be powerful things if we choose to make them a reality. Henry Ford had an impassioned idea of a motorcar that would be affordable for the average family and he designed the Model T Ford. Edmund Hillary dreamed of climbing the highest mountain on earth and he and Tenzing Norgay were the first men to stand on top of Everest. Tim Berners-Lee dreamed of a way of freely sharing information and knowledge to pe...
Mar 11, 2024•5 min•Season 6Ep. 3
The SWOT analysis is one of the best-known situational and self-awareness tools. SWOT is an acronym that stands for: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The SWOT analysis was originally developed by researchers at Stanford University and designed for organisations but it can equally be used by individuals. The podcast looks at the 4 steps needed to complete a personal SWOT analysis. For more information, you can access the accompanying article using this link: https://therightquest...
Mar 04, 2024•6 min•Season 6Ep. 2
How would you describe your personality? What makes up your character? When it comes to the psychology of personality people often talk about either types or traits. The difference between traits and types reflects the distinction between analogue and digital. Personality type theory is more digital, saying that something either is or isn’t of a certain sort. For example, a test using the ‘type’ approach will say you are either extroverted or introverted. It does not illustrate to what degree yo...
Feb 27, 2024•5 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Nancy Kline, author of Time to Think, has spent years researching and developing better listening skills to help people think. The principles that she has identified come together to make what she calls the ‘Thinking Environment’. The Thinking Environment is made up of ten components. These are: Attention Equality Ease Appreciation Encouragement Information Feelings Diversity Incisive Questions Place The podcast episode includes a fuller explanation of each aspect. If you would like to find out ...
Feb 19, 2024•6 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Burnout is brought on by mental and physical exhaustion. This can be brought on by living or working in a stressful situation. This can result in feeling drained of energy, mentally trapped and physically ill. Ignoring such signs can make things even worse, and the best course of action is to create a balance in life to avoid getting burnt out in the first place. We can think about our mental and physical health as being like driving a car. When we drive a vehicle, we know we can accelerate hard...
Feb 12, 2024•7 min•Season 5Ep. 10
One of the biggest challenges of decision-making is generating, assessing, and then choosing from among the different solutions there are to any given challenge. That might be buying a car, choosing a property or changing jobs but if the choice has a large impact on time and money then we are likely to spend longer considering our options and working out the best course of action. To help make the best choice we want to: Brainstorm multiple options Develop several courses of action Assess the co...
Feb 05, 2024•5 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Research has shown that a group must progress through certain development stages to become a high-performing team. A leader is responsible for managing this process, but it is one that affects us all, no matter our role, and we can all assist in improving our teams. The Drexler-Sibbet model of Team Performance helps us as it identifies the questions that a team needs to work through to progress through each level of performance. In this model, there are seven questions and stages of progression....
Jan 29, 2024•6 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Have you ever been a member of a dysfunctional team? If you have then you know how frustrating, depressing, and stressful it can be. Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , identified The 7 chronic problems of dysfunctional teams. The 7 issues are : 1. No shared vision or values 2. No strategic path 3. Poor alignment 4. Wrong style 5. Poor skills 6. Low trust 7. No self-integrity They are called chronic because, as with chronic diseases, dysfunctional team problems are...
Jan 22, 2024•6 min•Season 5Ep. 7
Have you ever set yourself a goal that you have been unable to achieve? I certainly have. Choosing to do something is generally easier than the practice of actually carrying out our decision. That is because goal setting is not a one-off decision, it is just the first of a series of decisions. Decision-making itself is a cyclical process . As a professional coach, who has worked with hundreds of clients, I can attest to the fact that most common life goals succeed or fail around the issues of ha...
Jan 15, 2024•5 min•Season 5Ep. 6
The Skill-Will Matrix is a situational leadership model, made popular by Max Landsberg in his book The Tao of Coaching (2003). The Skill-Will method is popular because it is easy to remember and apply. It provides a simple way to assess the right leadership style according to an individual or team’s level of motivation and competence. It is easily visualised as a two-by-two table with one axis being will (low and high) and the other axis being skill (low and high). The matrix then proposes the b...
Jan 08, 2024•6 min•Season 5Ep. 5
What do you most want to achieve in life? What is your biggest personal goal? Do you know what you need to do to succeed? Don’t worry, help is here! In the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, you can work through the coaching questions in this podcast and have a much better plan for achieving your life goals. As a coach , I spend a lot of time helping people think through their life goals and how to achieve them. I ask questions to help them through their decision-making process and then out...
Jan 01, 2024•6 min•Season 5Ep. 4
What do you need to improve? It might be something about you, your work, a project or your team but whatever it is, you need to review what you have done in order to work out how to progress. This is the simple premise behind the concept of continuous improvement, a critical element of deliberate practice and fundamental to having a growth mindset. And it is not just on the individual level. High-performing teams achieve their level through continual improvement. And we all know that right? So w...
Dec 18, 2023•5 min•Season 5Ep. 3
The term Adaptive Leadership was coined by Harvard University professor Ron Heifetz in his 1994 book, Leadership Without Easy Answers . The theory of Adaptive Leadership addresses the strategic question of how to lead people through change. Ron Heifetz set out 5 strategic principles to guide leaders, and their teams, through this process. These are: 1. Diagnose the situation. 2. Manage distress. 3. Identify distractions. 4. Delegate effectively. 5. Encourage challenge. The podcast looks at each ...
Dec 11, 2023•6 min•Season 5Ep. 2
The rule of 3 is very simple. Any time you use a triad of information in your communication you are using the rule of 3. A lot of the time we do it unconsciously but there is a long history of using the rule of three to structure arguments, stories and speeches. There is something about triads that connects with us on a psychological level and supports effective communication. The rule of 3 certainly encourages clarity, brevity, and memorability. Neuroscience research has shown that we can gener...
Mar 20, 2023•5 min•Season 4Ep. 10
The Trust Equation was developed by Charles Green, co-author of The Trusted Advisor , along with David Maister and Robert Galford. They explored the psychology of trust by looking at professional services and how people relate to one another. The result of this study was the Trust Equation. The equation is actually a measure of trustworthiness , in other words, how much trust we are willing to invest in a person. In this context, to have trust between two parties, you need someone who is trustin...
Mar 13, 2023•6 min•Season 4Ep. 9
We all know that trust is important. But what do we mean by trust? How would you define it? And having defined it, what can we do to develop trust in our relationships at work? Trust can be thought of as faith, belief, or hope. It is the feeling of confidence that we have in a person, organisation, or thing. Trust has both a logical and emotional quality. We choose to trust a thing because of how we think and how we feel . In relationships, trust is foundational, whether that is with friends and...
Mar 06, 2023•6 min•Season 4Ep. 8
How do we best learn? That may be a question you have not considered before, but it is certainly important. If we want to have a growth mindset, we need to ensure we are developing effectively. It turns out that effective learning happens cyclically, in a continual loop, and that is what the Kolb learning cycle helps us to embrace. Following extensive research, David A. Kolb published his learning cycle in 1984. Since then, Kolb’s learning cycle has become probably the best-known and most respec...
Feb 27, 2023•6 min•Season 4Ep. 7
In the previous podcast we highlighted the importance of confidence and that people are wealthier, happier and have better relationships if they are confident. We then looked at the mindset that assures confidence. Research by Dr Ian Robertson has proven that we need to think that we can do something and that it can happen for us to have real confidence. But how do we develop this confidence? Dr Robertson goes on to highlight five things to be aware of to improve confidence. These are language ,...
Feb 21, 2023•6 min•Season 4Ep. 6
How self-assured are you? Are you confident of your success, in your life, work and relationships? If you are unsure, then you are not alone. 85% of Americans suffer from low esteem, according to research by Dr Joe Rubino. This lack of confidence affects more than just our feelings, it impacts our earnings too. Best-selling author Barrie Davenport observes that, “One of the main obstacles to financial success is low self-confidence.” Further studies, such as those highlighted by Francesco Drago,...
Feb 13, 2023•5 min•Season 4Ep. 5
The SCARF model summarises the main social circumstances that prompt reward or threat responses. The SCARF model was developed by David Rock, author of Your Brain at Work . And based on extensive neuroscience and psychology research. The SCARF model stands for: · Status · Certainty · Autonomy · Relatedness · Fairness These are all concepts that can trigger feelings of reward or threat in social engagements. We move away from what we perceive as threatening situations, either consciously or uncon...
Feb 07, 2023•6 min•Season 4Ep. 4
How to Spot The Seven Types of Bad Leader Are you working for a toxic leader? Marcia Lynn Whicker popularised the term ‘toxic leader’ and the phrase is frequently used to describe bad leaders. But what does it actually mean? Sometimes we implicitly know that we are working for a terrible boss, but it can be hard to explain why. Fortunately, researchers have developed various models to identify the traits of bad leaders. For example, Barbara Kellerman conducted a study in 2004 to define the chara...
Jan 31, 2023•6 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to identify, comprehend, manage, and handle emotions. This ability starts with recognising and managing one’s own emotions and then those of others. Emotional intelligence is also known as Emotional Quotient or EQ. The term has been around since the 1960s but was made popular in 1995 by Daniel Goleman and his best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence . EQ (or EI) differs from IQ. IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient and IQ is a score of a person's problem-sol...
Jan 24, 2023•6 min•Season 4Ep. 2
The picture of an iceberg helps us to visualise culture and the link between behaviours and beliefs. An iceberg has less mass above the water (this visible part) as compared to the greater mass that lies below the surface (which is generally unseen). The main idea behind the iceberg model is that in the same way as a physical iceberg, with any culture, there are obvious things such as behaviours that are visible, but there are lots of things hidden below the surface within a group that drive the...
Jan 17, 2023•6 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Here is a short introduction to some of the most important leadership theories, trends, and models. These can all be instructive in understanding your own leadership style, broadening your expertise, and giving you tools to improve as a manager. The models covered in the podcast include: Great Man theory Control and domination, power, and influence Leadership traits and skills Action-centred leadership Transactional and Transformational leadership theory Situational leadership theory (flexible l...
Sep 05, 2022•8 min•Season 3Ep. 9
The Tuckman Team Development Model So, what are the stages of team development? Studies have shown that a group needs to evolve through certain steps to become an effective team. The most well-known (and memorable) theoretical model of this development process is the Tuckman Model. Bruce Tuckman did research that demonstrated that every team goes through various stages. He first identified four stages and then, upon further research, amended this to five stages of team development. These five st...
Mar 14, 2022•6 min•Season 3Ep. 8
What is an authentic leader? Authentic leadership is a relatively new leadership theory in the behavioural school of leadership theories. In many ways, it is largely the coming together of other leadership models. But it does put an emphasis on being true to self that differentiates it from other approaches. Taken at face value authentic leadership could be misleading or even damaging. After all, a toxic leader can be true to himself or herself and still be a bad leader. That is why true authent...
Mar 07, 2022•7 min•Season 3Ep. 7
What is transformational leadership? Transformational leadership is distinct from transactional leadership. Transactional leadership plays to the needs of individuals, using rewards, and where necessary punishments, to ensure performance and the achievement of a goal. The approach plays on our basic needs, as per Maslow’s hierarchy, to ensure compliance. Transformational leadership, by contrast, goes beyond just self-interest. It seeks to draw people to the highest point on the Maslow triangle —...
Feb 28, 2022•6 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Transactional leadership is a management style linked to behavioural leadership theory. In other words, it focuses on influencing people’s actions. This method relies on people’s needs and a ‘give and take’ approach to keep the team on track. In this way, it is closely linked to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The rewards and punishments reflect a trade of basic human needs. The manager barters with the team, dangling the carrot of incentives such as wages or recognition while holding the stick of ...
Feb 21, 2022•7 min•Season 3Ep. 5
