Simon Bound's invitation is awaiting your response

Simon Bound would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond? Simon Bound MD BusinessCoach & Challenging HR Confirm you know Simon You received an invitation to connect. LinkedIn will use your email address to make suggestions to our members in features like People You May Know. Unsubscribe If you need assistance or have questions, please contact LinkedIn Customer Service. © 2014, LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct. Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn

Simon Bound would like to stay in touch on LinkedIn. Simon Bound MD BusinessCoach & Challenging HR Reading, United Kingdom I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - Simon Confirm that you know Simon You received an invitation to connect. LinkedIn will use your email address to make suggestions to our members in features like People You May Know. Unsubscribe Learn why we included this. If you need assistance or have questions, please contact LinkedIn Customer Service. © 2014, LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct. Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

Excellent Job

"You did an excellent job of facilitating our divisional retreat" - Head of Economic and Legal Section, Commonwealth Secretariat

Free stuff on the internet

I have just ordered a nice door sign from Sign-O-Matic! TOTALY FREE! Blog about Sign-O-Matic too and get a free sign!

... be more productive

If you are usually burnt out by Friday, or sometimes feel you can’t do any more despite the ever-growing demands on your time, then you’re not alone.

Most of us would like to be more productive, but the usual route of putting in longer and longer hours is backfiring, with people ending up exhausted, disengaged and sick.

 

Key points

·         It is possible for you and your staff to be more productive

·         Energy is the key, and can be tackled on three different levels – physical, emotional and mental

·         Managing energy should not be a short-term fix – position it as a long-term investment in your people and the organisation

 

Almost active learning

Face-to-face action learning is well documented, but virtual action learning (VAL) appears under-used, despite its ability to bring together geographically dispersed individuals. Social networking, free software and mobile devices have also never made it more available.  With generation Y & Z if you don’t do it they make judge your organisation accordingly.

 

Points to note

 

·         Virtual action learning seems underused

·         A six-form model illustrates the technologies and their use

·         Each form tends to be used alongside another form (face to face is still vital)

·         As the technologies become more sophisticated, so the opportunities for learning increase

 

 

Basic instinct

Intuition is something that’s difficult to put your finger on…

 

But, pinning it down will allow you to reap tangible rewards.

 

What is intuition?

 

·         Uninvited and instant: it’s an automatic, involuntary response to complex problems and decisions

·         Affective:  it’s accompanied by gut feelings of varying level of intensity

·         Holistic: it allows us to “parallel process” information quickly and efficiently, and to see the bigger picture

·         Non-conscious: we’re aware only of the outcomes of intuition.

 

“Intuitive experts aren’t born; they’re made – and there are few, if any, shortcuts to becoming one”

 

Potentially powerful and perilous: in the right hands, intuition can be a powerful way to handle complex problems under time pressure; in the wrong hands, it can be ineffective and even dangerous.

 

When is intuition very useful?

 

·         Sensing when a problem might exist – for example, when someone’s story doesn’t stack up or there’s an ethical dilemma

·         Performing well-learned behavior patterns rapidly.  We can often simply go ahead and do something is a situation that’s familiar, rather than think too much about it

·         If expectations are violated.  When we expect a situation to go a certain way but it doesn’t, this can set off our intuitive alarm bell

·         Synthesising the big picture.  When faced with several isolated pieces of information, intuition lets us stand back, avoid “analysis paralysis” and sense how the pieces might fit together

·         Checking out the results of rational analysis. Sensing when hard data doesn’t feel quite right, intuition can sound the alarm for us to seek more information or look at what data we do have from a different angle