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Featured Content Cover Story Leadership: Strength based leadership Interview with Michelle McQuaid
Features Editor’s Note Welcome to this issue on personal effectiveness, change and focus.
Impact: Support your brain to focus to increase your productivity & lower your stress Multitasking is a myth - Rachel Bamber shares habits to implement for improved focus and productivity.
Change: Switch - How to change things when change is hard A review of Chip and Dan Heath’s book, with great balance of robust research and readability.
Purpose: Career Navigation Cycle Steve Preston discovered the definitive process to achieve successful career change or transition. He shares his 6 steps cycle to help you with career crossroads.
Perspectives: 10 tips for successful projects Bridget Boylan shares her key tips on successfully managing projects. Find out how can you be a thriving project manager.
Articles 101: Tuckman’s stages of team development Infographic summarising Bruce Tuckman’s classic model capturing the process groups go through on their way to becoming high performing teams. By Agi Galgoczi.
Purposeful People: How to coach Do you use coaching as a part of your leadership practice? If so, how? In part 2 in this mini-series on this important management activity, Eszter Molnar Mills shares how you should structure your coaching conversations.
5 of the Best… Resources to keep resolutions January is the month of getting fit, being more productive, having a new frame of mind. We collected five resources that can help you keep the resolutions you choose to make, and for sustainably improving habits.
Recommended Reads: This Is Water by David Foster Wallace Pete Hamill’s book recommendation is for a profound book with the capacity to change your perspective.
Words to Lead By: Henry Stewart Founder and Chief Executive of Happy Ltd, the award winning Learning and Development organisation, shares the best piece of advice he has ever received. Your feedback would make us happy. Tweet us your opinion at @People_Purpose If you’re interested in contributing don’t hesitate to contact us: support@peopleandpurposejournal.com
Editor’s Note Welcome to the third issue of People & Purpose - the Positive Leadership Journal. January is traditionally a time for renewed focus, with the time many of us had away from work at the end of December an opportunity to rest and take stock. In that vein, the current edition of People & Purpose concentrates on effectiveness, change and focus. The second part of my introduction to coaching article looks at how you can coach your staff to help their focus and effectiveness. There is also an invitation for a free webinar hosted by the Chartered Management Institute where I will be looking at positive approaches to managing change. This month’s feature interview is with Michelle McQuaid, workplace wellbeing teacher and founder of the Strengths Challenge. At Formium Development we have been following Michelle for a while now, and participated in last year’s Challenge, so it was a particular pleasure to speak with her. In the interview Michelle shares some fascinating data and research (including how to get a 63% swing in performance levels) as well as straightforward advice for leaders. Our how-to articles provide guidance for effective project management and improving your focus for effectiveness. We review five of the best habit-building tools and the book Switch – How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. If the new year has you thinking of changing jobs, watch Steve Preston’s video explaining his career navigation cycle.
What are your plans for 2016? Is there a way that we can support you? Are there areas of leadership that you would like to know more about? We would very much welcome suggestions for future topics and contributors, please e-mail us at support@peopleandpurosejournal.com. Eszter Molnar Mills, Editor-in-Chief
Leadership
Strength based leadership Interview with Michelle McQuaid
Michelle McQuaid is a best-selling author, workplace wellbeing teacher and playful change activator, she helps organisations using positive psychology and neuroscience to help understand what is happening to people’s brains in complexity and uncertainty. She then provides very small practical ways to start applying these ideas and bring out the best in themselves. In the interview above she talks to Eszter Molnar Mills about strength focused leadership, resilience and the Strength Challenge.
McQuaid, during her work with different organisations, realised not many workplaces are well designed to bring out the best in people. Many of them generate anxiety which makes it harder to put our strengths to work and be more productive and happy in our jobs. Professor David Cooperrider's research estimates that most workplaces currently spend about 80% of their time focused on fixing weaknesses and only 20% focused on fixing strengths. His suggestion is that we want to flip this equation. McQuaid says the trick with these weaknesses is being realistic about the amount of time and energy it really takes to change these behaviours. A weakness is a weakness because someone's brain isn't currently wired to do that behaviour well. ‘Rewiring’ our brains takes time, a lot of effort and practice, and so we should be realistic about the outcome we are likely to achieve.
When a leader has a performance conversation with Performance an employee and they focus improves by more the things that employee 36% when we needs ton o fix about focus on themselves, on average they strengths see performance decline for a rather than period of time afterwards by 27%. When that leader focuses weaknesses. on the employee’s strengths, what's working for them, that they can do more of, then for the same period of time, on average, we see performance improve by up to 36%. That is a massive difference.
36%
Michelle and her team started a program, called the Strengths Challenge, to improve performance and well-being of employees worldwide. We took part last year and encourage you to join the next challenge 8-12 February 2016.
To find out more about strength focused leadership, Michelle’s immediately actionable suggestions for leaders, the Strengths Challenge, and much more watch the interview above.
Michelle McQuaid is a best-selling author, workplace wellbeing teacher and playful change activator. She fuses the latest science from positive psychology and neurobiology with over a decade of business leadership experience to bring you simple, tested actions to reduce stress and anxiety, cultivate a lasting sense of wellbeing and happiness, and become an exceptional leader. She is the developer of the Strengths Challenge and the co-developer of PERMAH Workplace.
Send us your suggestions for upcoming interviews: support@peopleandpurposejournal.com
Impact Support your brain to focus to increase your productivity & lower your stress Do you or your teams procrastinate? Do you frequently experience stress and overwhelm from work? Do you think that you are enslaved to email and wish you had more time for your own work priorities / goals?
You are not alone. The latest discoveries from neuroscience suggest that generally we work against our brain, making decisions, communication and getting tasks done a lot harder than needed. Contrary to popular belief, when attending to conscious activities which require cognition (e.g. thinking, writing, creativity, decision making, conversations – general every day activities!) the human brain is wired to single task focus. Multi-tasking is a myth and has no gender bias: the brain actually switches back and forth between each task if you attempt to do this. Neuroscience research reveals that actually trying to multitask will cost you: the tasks will take longer to complete and often more stress will be experienced. Watch someone attempting to walk and text at the same time: their walking speed automatically slows down to compensate. Whilst you are working at your computer for example creating a report, if you are interrupted by a colleague who comes by your desk or choose to stop writing to read that incoming email, studies show that it can take twenty-minutes to resume the same level of focus on the original task. Over the course of the working day, these seemingly insignificant interruptions
cause the loss of over two hours of productivity per worker. “There are few things ever dreamed of, smoked or injected that have as addictive an effect on our brains as technology” (McGonigal, 2012) and “perhaps not since Early Man first discovered how to use a tool has the human brain been affected so quickly and so dramatically” (Small and Vorgan, 2008). Neuroscience which itself relies on advances in technology to conduct research, suggests that the advantages of communication technology come at a high price. Nevertheless, neuroscience is discovering potential solutions as “human attention is a trainable capacity” (Levy et al., 2012). So instead of setting New Year resolutions, implement these habits to improve your focus, increase your productivity and lower your stress: Focus on one task at a time: single task focus and enjoy the satisfaction from an increase in the ticks off your to-do-list. Complete the task so there are no distracting open-loops left in the brain: your brain has a limited capacity of attention and unfinished conversations, decisions not made etc will take up valuable space in its working memory and therefore deplete your energy – and attention for the next activity. Optimise your attention: concentrate on complex cognitive tasks during the morning when your brain’s attention is generally at its highest (following a good night’s sleep) and enable working during daylight to help you (a particular issue during winter). Avoid interruptions or distractions: this includes actually switching off digital devices. Designed like drugs for your brain, the anticipation of contact from someone else is perceived as rewarding for the brain (hence the frequent checking and addictive behaviour) and the distraction diminishes focus, energy and affects heart rate variability. Break for your brain: you know when it is time for a break as your mind will naturally start to wander. You may feel more distracted or start looking out of the window. Notice these cues for you to take a break from the particular task. Maybe it is time for a coffee or a walk? The human brain cannot sustain attention on a task for that long (focusing for around twenty
to ninety minute bursts) so rather than berating yourself, break for your brain and watch your productivity soar. This includes enjoying a proper lunch break, away from your desk and a restorative sleep every night! As a result, you will have the brain-based skills to be more effective at managing your time (self!), demonstrate enhanced performance and move forward on your projects faster. © Rachel Bamber, Brighter Thinking Limited, 2016
Rachel Bamber PCC – the Brighter Thinking Expert™ Rachel Bamber is an expert in using powerful, brainfriendly strategies to deliver peak performance. She has helped people all over the world to work with their brain to get what they want - faster and with less stress. Among the pioneering adventurers who have worked with her include people in the public eye, corporate leaders and super-ambitious small business owners. A nominee for the GLE Rising Star Award in business and one of the first six people in the world to be awarded the Post-Graduate Certificate in the Neuroscience of Leadership, Rachel’s first book, Your Brain is the Secret will be published in 2016.www.brighterthinking.com
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Change Switch - How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath
Over the last few decades a dispiriting body of research has been amassed, which suggests that the vast majority of change programmes fail, or fail to reach their intended outcomes. In their book Switch - How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, academics Chip and Dan Heath address this challenge head on. The authors argue that we all have both an emotional and a rational side, which they portray as the elephant and the rider - for their relative roles and power. They suggest that the emotional (elephant) and rational (rider) sides have different needs and limitations that we have to address for change to be successful. Furthermore, we can also smooth the path to make change as easy as possible. The Switch model outlines three sets of actions to support each of the elephant, rider and path. The aspects of the model are therefore to:
Direct the rider by • Following the bright spots: ‘Investigate what’s working and clone it.’
• •
Scripting the critical moves by specifying the exact desired behaviours. Pointing to the destination, making the desired outcome, its purpose and benefits clear.
Motivate the elephant by
• • •
Finding the feeling: allowing people to feel an emotion about the subject, rather than just think about it. Shrinking the change into a manageable size until it ‘no longer spooks the Elephant.’ Growing your people to meet the challenges through development and encouraging a growth mindset.
Shape the path by • • •
Tweaking the environment so that it supports and encourages behaviour change. Building habits, so that the new behaviour becomes automatic and no longer requires willpower. Rallying the herd through modelling the new behaviour approach and building on social pressure to help it spread.
The Heaths have created a leadership book with great – but all too rare – balance. The Switch model and their recommendations are based on robust research from business, management, psychology and even international development. These are then presented in a very accessible and readable book with lots of case studies and illustrative examples that both ‘point to the destination’ and allow us to ‘find the feeling’, resulting in an inspirational and immediately actionable read for leaders looking to make organisational or personal changes.
Book review by Eszter Molnar Mills Switch - How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath is available at amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. Additional resources are available from heathbrothers.com.
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Purpose Career Navigation Cycle
All of us has or had challenges with finding the right job or career for ourselves at some point our lives. Steve Preston discovered there is a definite process to achieve successful career change or transition! He shares his 6 step Career Navigation Cycle in the video above. If you take these steps the cycle can help you to win through career crossroads. You will find additional details in the video above. Step 1 – Let go and look forward: You are what you think and feel. Step 2 – Re-evaluate: What is important to you in your career and life and why? Step 3 – Establish your true marketability: Self-awareness is a key to selling yourself for your next job or career.
Step 4 – Explore opportunities: Research the type of job, employer, environment or business idea you may have. Networking is really important! Step 5 – Decide what to do: You do have CHOICE! Step 6 – Take positive action: The future may look scary or exciting but you don’t want to be thinking ‘what if’, do you?
To find out more watch the video above where Steve himself walks you through each of the six steps of his SMP Career Navigation Cycle. This content is reproduced with permission.
Recognised as 'The Career Catalyst'®, Steve Preston, author of ‘Winning through redundancy - Six steps to navigate your way to a brighter future’ has transformed the lives of thousands of executives and professionals. A top career coach, Steve thrives on inspiring people to unlock their potential and fulfil their talent. His Career Catalyst website features breakthrough coaching and inspirational Career Development products. His company SMP Solutions, provides a range of Career and People Development services.
Leadership actions that help you develop a positive culture in your team or organisation View this free webinar to explore: • What organisational culture is and how it is determined • What high performance cultures have in common • 3 leadership actions you need to take to develop a positive culture within your team and organisation
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Perspectives 10 tips for successful projects
Introduction The vision of the APM (Association for Project Management) for 2020 is ‘a world in which all projects succeed’. To achieve this vision experienced project managers need to share their knowledge for the benefit of everyone in the profession. Below are some of my best tips and techniques acquired from over 25 years of managing successful projects and programmes. I implement large software applications for companies and have worked in 4 sectors: manufacturing, banking, housing and education. These tips and techniques apply in all the sectors I’ve worked in and I hope you will find them useful in achieving success in your own project management field. Governance As you manage larger projects you realize the importance of good governance. It means the project will be directed effectively, and it engenders a positive feeling towards the project throughout the leadership of the organisation.
Tip 1 – Build a strong relationship with the Project Sponsor (sometimes called the Project Executive or Senior Responsible Officer). With most Sponsors a regular 1-to-1 meeting (weekly or bi-weekly) will enable you to build a good relationship and your sponsor increasingly
will trust your advice. As a project manager you won’t usually be able to choose your project sponsor, but for the project (and you) to be a success you need a senior director who is fully committed to the Project, and fully committed to backing you. It’s therefore important to build a good relationship with the sponsor and even go so far as to train the sponsor in how to govern a project effectively; I once suggested that my sponsor attend a Sponsors breakfast networking meeting run by a top Project Management consultancy. The Sponsor enjoyed the morning networking with their peers and was much more confident and relaxed as a result. Tip 2 – Ensure everyone on the Project Board understands their role. I once ran a 3-year project at a University and there were 14 members on the Project Board. At the end of the project one of the Board members said to me ‘You know I was never sure of my role on the Board’. What a waste of time and money that was for the organization. Since that experience I ensure everyone on the Board knows their role at the outset of the project. Some methods I’ve found effective are: reviewing the PRINCE2 roles in the first Project Board meeting, issuing a Terms of Reference document for the Board members, and then following this up with 1-to-1 meetings with each Board Member to go through their role and answer any questions. This is hugely beneficial as Directors will share their views of the project with you in private, clarifying the scope, and sharing any personal worries or concerns e.g. over the budget, timescale, or frequently the change management process. Senior people will be far more likely to ask questions in a private 1-to-1 meeting than in a Board meeting. This effort up front pays great dividends later as it makes for a much more cohesive project for the organization. It also allows you to build a good relationship with a director, and it shows respect for the board member and the time they are giving to the project. Tip 3 – Keep the Project Board members engaged Once the Project Board meetings are underway you need to keep the members interested in attending – especially if a project goes on for 1 to 2 years. You can achieve this through a mixture of carrot and stick!
On the stick side have a ‘three strikes and you're out!’ policy for attendance, including no deputies allowed, as it wastes too much time going over old ground and it is confusing as to where the chain of communication lies. On the carrot side, ensure Board meetings are organised well with timed agendas and papers sent out sufficiently in advance to allow members time to read them. Importantly, remember that Directors love making decisions – so ensure that there are one or more key decisions to be made at each Project Board meeting. That way the Directors will feel they are contributing and that their time is well used.
Project Tip 4 – Understand the type of project before you start Projects vary in type and it’s important to understand which type of project you are running, as some are more risky than others. I have found myself returning again and again to the definition of projects described by Professor Eddie Obeng in his book ‘All Change! The Project Leaders Secret Handbook’. Obeng describes four types of projects: Fog project - you and your stakeholders are unsure of what is to be done and unsure of how it is to be carried out e.g. break into a new market sector. Making a movie project - you and most of your stakeholders are sure of how the project should be conducted but not of what is to be done e.g. develop a new product. Quest - you and your stakeholders are very sure of what should be done but not how to do it - it usually a very seductive idea e.g. replace the Finance system and implement a new chart of accounts and projects structure as used by top US Universities.
Painting by numbers - you and your stakeholders know what is to be done and how to do it e.g. office moves
Depending on which type of project you're leading you need a different style of project sponsor, project manager and project team.
Planning I believe planning is the heart of good project management and if I only had to produce 1 document it would be the project plan. Tip 5 – Create a summary high level plan on a poster I use MS Excel to create a summary high-level plan, and print it on an A0 poster. This is excellent for Project communications and can be pinned on walls throughout the organisational areas affected. It is light and portable i.e. it can be folded down to A3 size and taken to any meeting. It can be used in Project Board meetings and in presentations throughout the project. As it’s a summary plan you would only have to update it every 3 months. I used this at one University and we printed 20 copies every 3 months to be put up in all the Finance offices around the campus. At a housing association it was pinned to a white board and wheeled around the offices to different meetings. Tip 6 – Create a detailed project plan As a Programme Manager with project managers working for me I create the project plan with them, so that I know exactly what they’re doing in their project, and how they’ve arrived at their estimates. I also want to understand their thinking and how they intend to manage the project. Then I leave them to run the project and report progress back to me. Three features of a good plan - easy to understand i.e. no jargon, it describes a logical flow and is well structured - easy to communicate i.e. easy to print off, portable - easy to maintain i.e. 30 minutes a week Tip 7 – Understand how the planning tools work I use MS Project and it is perfectly adequate, but 99% of people use it incorrectly because they don’t understand that Duration is a calculated field, based on the Work effort and number/percentage of Units employed. Once staff understand that they can use it much more proficiently, so consider arranging appropriate training for your project team.
Yourself If you choose to specialise in project management, the following suggestions will help you develop your practice. As project manager you are leader of the project and you must look after yourself to continue to lead larger and more demanding projects. Tip 8 – Look for varied experience I've worked for 7 different companies in 4 sectors and in the public and private domains. Each change in organisation and experience will add more to your skillset, and after 3 or 4 changes you’ll find you have a wide variety of tools, skills, documents and a personal network of contacts you can use confidently on your projects. Tip 9 – Keep ‘sharpening the blade’ Once you’ve got the project management qualifications look for other areas to study. All projects create change and obtaining change management qualifications is extremely useful. All projects succeed through people, so coaching skills are useful, and of course leaderships skills. I recommend taking a 5-day qualification rated course each year, to learn new techniques and exchange knowledge with peers. Tip 10 – Join a professional organisation There are organisations where you can network with other Project Managers and share your experiences and tips in articles and presentations. For project managers I recommend joining the Association for Project Management, (APM) or the Project Management Institute (PMI). You can also volunteer for roles within the organisation and therefore grow your management and leaderships skills too.
Bridget Boylan Programme Manager, BSc, FCMI, MAPM, RPP Experienced project, programme and portfolio manager. Personal Performance Coach for project managers, project sponsors and their teams.
101
Perspectives People Purposeful How to coach Introduction to Coaching – Part 2 In our last issue we looked at some of the benefits of coaching your team members. Here we consider how you would start coaching. You can coach anytime, anywhere. Your coaching conversations need not be formal or take more than a few minutes. It is however distinguished from other management activity by three key points: • it is solution-focussed, • it leaves ownership and accountability with the staff member or coachee. To achieve this, coaching involves asking insightful questions and providing reflection without giving advice or direction. Start with the outcome Start conversations with ‘what do we want to achieve?’, ‘what do you need?’. Encourage your staff member to articulate where they are aspiring to be or what an ideal outcome would look like. Then you look at the current situation: ‘This is our goal, and this is where we are at the moment. Let's talk about how we bridge that gap.’
Next, encourage the coachee to come up with potential solutions or options. Rather than providing advice, ask questions to help them work issues out for themselves: ‘What options do you have?’ ‘What do we need to do to make this project a success?’ ‘How are you going to marshal your skills, experience, and resources to achieve it?’ and the magic coaching question: ‘What else?’ Aim for as many options as they can gather – we often find that the really innovative solutions only emerge once we exhausted all the obvious ideas. Ensure that there is a specific set of outcomes or actions from the coaching conversation. The coachee needs to choose and commit to their own next step to draw real benefit from this approach.
It is not about you – ownership and accountability belong with the coachee In coaching the question is always, ‘what are you going to do’, then ‘what support might you need to succeed’? Accountability and ownership rests with the coachee or individual whose job or project you are discussing. Your role is to facilitate their thinking, not to solve the team member’s issues, or do their job for them. Understanding this distinction is remarkable freeing and allows for better quality conversations. Listen to the other person, rather than your thoughts about how you might respond. What is really important to them? What are their challenges? What opportunities are they seeing? What next steps do they want to take? When encouraged to come up with our own solutions, we maintain ownership and accountability, and feel much more motivated to follow through than when we are told what to do.
Provide support and challenge
Provide support and help where it is needed. Ask your team member to articulate what they see as the main challenge in a particular project and how you can support them in overcoming it. Encourage them to identify the resources available to them; or similar situations or tasks where they have previously been successful. Praise people for difficulties they've chosen to tackle, for taking ownership and accountability or for doing a great job of resolving their own issues. Also provide constructive challenge. If you hear ’We can never do that because.....’ ask them, ’Are you sure? Can you tell me what it would take for us to actually be able to? Could we do something differently to enable us to achieve this?’ Challenging is often a crucial part of coaching conversations. Coaching is a crucial management skill And an activity that has great return on time invested and wide-ranging business benefits. Put these suggestions into practice and if you would like more support, consider hiring a coach for yourself or taking part in coaching skills training. It is at the intersection of ownership, accountability, support and challenge where growth takes place, allowing you to fulfil the central leadership responsibility of getting the most from your people. Eszter Molnar Mills is a strength-based leadership and organisation development specialist and founder of Formium Development. A qualified executive and team coach, she helps organisations and individuals reach enhanced performance by reflecting on what works, and developing skills and strategies for improvement. Eszter developed several Coaching skills for Managers programmes for organisations and is the Programme Director of Chartered Management Institute (CMI) qualifications in Management Coaching and Mentoring.
5 of the Best… …resources to keep resolutions How are your New Year’s resolutions coming along? January is the month of getting fit, being more productive, having a new frame of mind. We collected five resources that can help you keep the resolutions you choose to make, and for sustainably improving habits. Better than before - Gretchen Rubin on habits “Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision making and from using self-control.” – says Rubin. She provides resources to help you understand your preferences and choose habit strategies that will work for you. Also look out for her podcast. MindTools New year, new me. How can you renew yourself most easily? With learning a new skill for personal or career development. Since 1996, Mind Tools has offered practical online training to individuals keen to excel in the workplace. Join them! FlexScore Did you promise to yourself to be better at managing your money? FlexScore is a website that shows you how are you doing financially and how you are doing compared to your peers. The best part is that you get a free, update financial analysis that helps you understand how purchases affect your financial future.
100DayChallenge A radically different approach helping you keep your New Year’s resolutions. The organisers claim that you can get more done in the first 100 days of 2016 than most people do in 10 years. This is an online programme with a daily video lesson and a specific call to action. HeadSpace Did you have a stressful 2015? Did you promise that you will give more attention to mindfulness and meditate? HeadSpace is a personal trainer for your mind. You can choose different sessions to suit your mood and lifestyle. You can take a break anywhere and anytime since HeadSpace is available for iOS and Android as well. +1 Strengths Challenge 2016 The list would not be complete without our featured interviewee, Michelle McQuaid’s program. Join if your resolution was being more happy and energized at work. We took part last year and we can tell you that it has had an impact.
Do you use a resource you think we should have included? Tweet us your favourite ones @People_Purpose
In today’s fast changing environment agility and the ability to make change effectively is a key organisational requirement. Yet most change management initiatives fail and employees are increasing tired of, and resistant to, organisational changes.
18 February 2016, 12.30-1:30 GMT Register to attend this webinar to explore: • The key change management mistakes to avoid • Successful approaches to effectively leading change • How to minimise resistance, engage and motivate your people • Positive change management methodologies This event is part of the Charted Management Institute's Continuous Professional Development programme. Attendance is free and you do not have to be a CMI member to take part. The speaker is Eszter Molnar Mills, director of Formium Development and Editor-in-Chief of People & Purpose. The webinar is hosted by the Chartered Management Institute, please book on their website.
Click on the CMI logo to register!
Recommended Reads
A book that has the capacity to change you and really change your perspective on leadership – says Pete Hamill, author and consultant. ”I would offer it as a counterpoint to a book on leadership. This is a book on leadership but in a subtle roundabout way. It's a book on living really.” David Foster Wallace gave a commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005, which has since been published as a book. You can also hear a recording of the speech here. “What Foster Wallace draws attention to in the commencement address, is not the big issues of life, and the big challenges of global existence but the moment by moment choices we have in how we use our thinking and our intellect, and what impact that has upon us – that’s what I love about this book.“ Pete Hamill thinks it's an incredibly profound book that has the capacity to really change your perspective on living life. It's a very short read, but it's a very profound reflection or meditation on living. This is Water by David Foster Wallace was recommended by Pete Hamill – check out our interview with him on embodied leadership. This is Water is available at amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.
Words to Lead By Henry Stewart is founder and Chief Executive of London-based training business Happy Ltd. Happy was rated one of the top 20 workplaces in the UK for 5 successive years and now helps other organisations create happy workplaces. He shares the best piece of advice he has ever received., when starting his company. It was simply:
Go make mistakes! ”I did, and got a lot out of that. I now give this advice to anybody setting up as an entrepreneur. The key benefits were that I got to take risks, try out stuff, and recognise it wasn’t an issue if some of them didn’t work.” When there are no mistakes it is a sign of nothing happening. Celebrating mistakes is an important part of creating a no-blame culture. Find out more about Henry Stewart, his suggestions on celebrating mistakes and other central aspects of leadership, and what it takes to build a great place to work, in our next issue.
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People & Purpose is published by Formium Development, a strengthbased leadership and organisational development consultancy in London, UK. The Journal’s Editor in Chief is Eszter Molnar Mills and its Managing Editor is Agi Galgoczi. We are privileged to have a great range of contributors – all leaders in their respective fields.
As a development consultancy Formium Development focuses on creating effective solutions, which allow clients to identify and build on their strengths and do more of their best work. Training and executive coaching is available for managers throughout their career path, including well respected internationally recognised qualifications in management and leadership from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). Formium Development's aim is to help individuals and teams improve their performance and become more engaged and fulfilled within their work. Contact us: Website: www.formium.co.uk; www.peopleandpurposejournal.com E-mail: info@formium.co.uk; support@peopleandpurposejournal.com Telephone: 020 7416 6648 (International: +44 20 7416 6648)