Business Skills


Brand New, Brand You - Self-discovery 7
Reading Time: 6 minutes In the second part of the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the first step in the START process in Brand New, Brand You, namely Self-discovery. START – Self-discovery A personal brand is much more than a job title or how you look. This first [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 2


Brand You START 8
Reading Time: 3 minutes I’ve had some feedback recently that people would like some support in finding new roles, building their personal profile and generally improving their employability. Brand New, Brand You is a series of Think Oak! posts to help you improve your personal brand in the increasingly crowded and competitive job market. Brands [...]

The Brand New, Brand You ~ Part 1


Word Cloud - Elephant in the Room 3
Reading Time: 7 minutes I see two distinct types of ‘Elephant’ in my line of work…and two ways of tackling them. The Management Elephant and the Leadership Elephant. This blog focusses on the latter. If you missed Part 1 – An Elephant in the Room: Management breakthroughs, and are wondering what on earth I’m [...]

An Elephant in the Room Part 2 – Leadership Breakthroughs



Listen to your People
Reading Time: 3 minutes For a while now I’ve worked with developing my direct team into being more… More focused, more passionate, delivering more and being more commercially and customer focused. And to a large degree we’ve succeeded. I’m really proud of them and what we’ve achieved so far. But to really succeed and make a step change in our [...]

Stop listening …. and give up!


Teams and Teamwork
Reading Time: 7 minutes Teams and Teamwork have changed The make-up and nature of teams have changed significantly in recent years. Organisations have become more distributed across geography and across industries. Closer relationships between people inside an organisation and those previously considered outside (customers, suppliers, partners and other stakeholders) have become more important. Organisations [...]

Teams and Teamwork 2.0


Bullying 2
Reading Time: 3 minutes A very wise lady, the late Blanche Eldon, told me something when I was about 15 years old, that has stayed with me ever since. I was in my first management role – a Patrol Leader in a local Boy Scout Troop. We were mid-way through our ten-day summer camp and one of [...]

Feedback: A teaspoonful of criticism, and a bucketful of praise!



25
Reading Time: 5 minutes You would be amazed at the number of people who still don’t understand the importance of networking. Building relationships is crucial – there are many smart, talented people who don’t progress as much as they would hope in their career because they are not visible to the “right” people. Use every opportunity to build relationships with [...]

Business Networking – It’s not ‘what’ you know…


, Tree, Mark Conway, Oak Consult 3
Reading Time: 5 minutes In my experience, over performance in business can’t happen consistently without building powerful relationships. Similarly, if you look at underperformance in your team, you will often find that it is the lack of powerful relationships or broken relationships that are the cause. There is no quick fix….sorry. BUT, if you invest time, honesty, passion and [...]

10 ways for building powerful relationships