The Interim: You’ve accepted a fantastic job. The problem is that you’ve been told -- and everyone knows -- that it’s a temporary position, and things quickly start to get awkward.
Interim appointments are becoming a more common feature of organisational life, especially at senior levels. The speed that ambitious and talented individuals move onwards and upwards results in key appointments forever needing to be filled – and if the organisation’s performance is not going to suffer unduly, then filling the vacancy quickly is important – but not as Read MorePolitical Situation Case Study A: The Apprentice
The Apprentice: The new guy has arrived and is strongly favoured by the CEO. He is creating lots of disruption for your team.
Anyone who has been working in an organisation -– particularly a large one -- will know that disruption is common, and often uncomfortable. While we may be able to manage our own work skilfully, the competitive environment places continuous pressure on us all to perform better and in different ways. Our ability to handle this relentless pressure to change -- and the ambiguity that Read MoreFrom Political Naivety to Mastery
Many years ago I did a silly thing.
At the time, I was working in a large financial services firm, in their international division. It was a wild place to be honest, out of the mainstream. But, a place where we could innovate, move fast, open up new markets, and make lots of profit – often to the embarrassment of the larger UK based divisions.
The politics were fast, at times a little brutal, but we always made up afterwards and celebrated our collective successes.
The silly thing I did?
Well, I thought Read More
Top Ten Irritating Political Situations at Work
Over the last month I’ve been talking to a lot of people about the political problems they face at work. This research was initiated to accompany a new online course I am developing, Mastering the Politics.
What I wanted to do is to make sure it is relevant and solves as many of the current problems people are facing as possible. What the research threw up was as fascinating as it was depressing.
So, without further ado, in reverse order, the most irritating political situations people are having to cope with at work are: Read More
Implementing the Six Pillars of Political Mastery
The Six Pillars of Political Mastery are intended to get results. Especially useful where is it difficult to work out what is really going on.
Here are two simple examples of how it helped two of my coaching clients recently.
In the first example, Susan had been having difficulty with a senior level stakeholder. This stakeholder had been loud in her criticism of what Susan was doing, demanding reports at short notice and generally creating grief all round, not just for Susan. However, given her position it was difficult to ignore what she was doing.
Susan’s initial inclination was to take steps to Read More
Influencing Style Resources
Developing your influencing style flexibility is a key priority if you wish to make the most of your relationships. This resource centre brings together the most effective articles, exercises and videos on this topic, and is freely available to subscribers of the influence blog.
Read More
Turning Optimism into Hard Results
Second call with Alan today. He’s a senior strategy guy in a large financial services firm. Last month he became one of my Private Clients.
Things are starting to happen, and you need to pay attention because we can all learn from this, me included.
“Alan, what are the three biggest changes for you since our first call?”
Firstly, he and his stakeholders are all crystal clear on what he wants to achieve – his next position. When we first spoke, it was all a little vague, it could be this, it could be that. After a tough challenge from yours truly, and a short period of reflection, he landed the vision. And then he went straight to work selling the idea.
Lessons Read More
Project Managers Are Too Soft. Are You?
Incredible it may be, but the data is beginning to emerge that this could indeed be the case. The usual caveat about generalisations aside, this is what my recent research is starting to reveal. And, you don’t have to be a project manager to learn from these results.
Based on a group of 195 project managers[1] I have discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that they are more likely to be high in Tact and Diplomacy and low in Determination, than the general (professional) working population. To be honest, I had expected the opposite.
These people all completed my Influence Profile that measures preferred behaviours when working with others. This is not looking at their actual behaviour, but rather the way they would most like to behave (which is reality is the default behaviour they use most of the time).
Within this psychometric, four dimensions of behaviour are analysed and Read More
Are You Too Evasive?
“If you are asked a direct question a second time, give a direct answer no matter how much it may hurt.”
This is a rule I'd like to encourage you to strive towards because it will, in the long run, help you to achieve greater success and fulfilment.
Although this may appear naïve, especially if a frank and honest answer may work against you, the long term benefits can be great. Surprisingly, the short term outlook Read More
Seven Things Your Opposition Hopes You’ll Never Learn
It is entirely natural to have opposition. In fact, I would encourage it. Unless you have opposition the game is too easy ― isn't it? Well I hope you think that because otherwise you might be wasting your talent, ambition and energy. Opponents stretch thinking, pressure test proposals and balance the corporate agenda. Without opposition you may end up with an organisation being dominated by a powerful few; and this can wreak havoc on the strategy, results and morale ― at least in the medium term.
Yet, desirable though it is, the fact remains that the opposition will still want to win. They may be mature and tell you that it is all about making the right decision for the business, but don’t be fooled. Underneath the rhetoric is a real person. They, like you, much prefer Read More
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