Here I explore the distinction between two team elements, being effective and being happy and I list what teams need to be effective and to be happy. I also provide 2 checklists to assist to identify these two components. Our work gives us a lot of insight into how people work both as team members […]
Author: Robyn Mercer
Will all groups have conflict at some point? Is it useful to ignore it? Is conflict worse if you talk about it?
Have you ever wanted to ignore disagreements, disputes or challenging behaviour and hope it will go away? In a senior leadership team workshop designed to address open dispute and historical tension between the leaders, a participant asked the question: But aren’t you making the situation worse by doing this workshop to bring out all the […]
Being a great supervisor requires significant skill
Now is the time to ensure the necessary and important skills are in place for all supervisors, team leaders and middle managers because the lack of these skills has an immensely damaging impact on teams and organisations. Building frontline management skills across all parts of the organisation is vital because it is supervisors and managers […]
How much harm does working with difficult people do? Here’s what people had to say. And more from the survey – the 3rd most difficult behaviour.
Why care about the work environment and the impact of difficult behaviour on others? Survey respondents gave distressing feedback on the harm from working with difficult and dangerous people. There were some sad and even heartbreaking responses to the question about the impact of working with a difficult person. Here are some of them: I […]
The top 4 reasons people are good to work with and the link to the second most difficult issue at work.
Who is good to work with? In a classic example of where research supports our lived experience, the top two behaviours of people who are good to work with are: good at their work are easy to get along with. How true this is. It is so much easier when you are surrounded by these […]
Thank you so much to those who completed the survey about dealing with people who are difficult at work. The top 3 difficult behaviours at work will not surprise any of you.
The survey on difficult behaviour was designed to uncover the most challenging behaviours we deal with at work and uncover how well organisations and leaders deal with this. We asked the specific question ‘what made people difficult to work with?’ and the top response was moodiness. No surprise, right? The effect of the moody colleague, […]
Easy learning? Effortful learning? Effective learning? What works?
Unfortunately, the trend in many organisations is to design learning to be as easy as possible. Aiming to respect their employee’s busy lives, companies build training programs that can be done at any time, with no prerequisites, and often on a mobile device. The result is fun and easy training programs that employees rave about […]
Who cares about performance and development conversations? Most likely the people who work for you care.
Recently in our work with staff, teams and leaders, my business partner, Tulsi van de Graaff and I have been talking about performance conversations and we’ve seen many situations of interest. For example: A manager who invests time and effort in having great conversations with his team members and yet doesn’t get the same support […]
It wasn’t acceptable 30 years ago – it was however tolerated. It’s about time we stopped tolerating bad behaviour at work.
We are having an important national discussion about the standards we have for people who are assaulted, demeaned, harassed, bullied or psychologically harmed at work. A significant part of this current conversation is the outright lack of consequences (or lack of proportional consequences) for people who don’t meet the basic standards of acceptable behaviour and […]
Let’s talk about a tough topic – the impact of trauma on people and what actions all of us can take to be caring and trauma informed
Being trauma informed will help all workplaces. Key points: Trauma is more prevalent than most of us realise Trauma has an impact on all facets of life including work-life There are ways to work with our colleagues and team members that is supportive for people who have been affected by trauma Taking care taken when […]
Do you speak up and stand up for yourself. Are you confident to put your view forward?
A recent newspaper advice column addressing the question: I find it difficult to be assertive. How can I change to become a more confident person? caught my attention because it advises the same techniques we use in leadership and team development programs and coaching. Here is the main part of the response.[1] But you can […]
Difficult, prickly, self-centred or unpredictable? Have you worked with one?
Ever worked with one? – we want to know more. Please help by completing this very quick survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BravePeople Our definition of people who are hard to work with is those who have a significant and toxic impact on those around them. They may be team members, team leaders or senior managers. They are the […]