10 Ways to Re-inspire yourself at Work

Are you feeling tired at work? Perhaps a little bored? We all need to reboot and renew ourselves occasionally.  Here are 10 different ways to locate that spark again.

1. Use self assessment instruments to learn more about your style, motivations and values.

Building your self awareness and exploring your motivations and your life themes can help to build your sense of value at work and will offer insights into how you can use your strengths for greater impact. We recommend using Harrison Assessments.

2. Read one book a month on topics related to self growth and development.

Be inspired by the thoughts and experiences of others.

Working with our Strongest Traits and our Unused Traits. Building Balance and Strength.

This week we are focusing in on behavioural traits. Harrison Assessments identifies 175 traits that provide a profile of those traits that are strong for you, those that are used easily and with comfort, and those which you have not yet given sufficient attention for them to have built strength in their use. Looking at your traits through the Harrison Profiles gives you wonderful insights into how to best use your traits at work, which jobs will suit you the best, which areas to target for development.

The profiles are also very useful for building your own self awareness, and minimising that “Not Known by Self/Blindspot” window of the Johari Windows.

What happens when we distrust our behavioural traits?

A small note today on our behavioural traits that might be holding us back in some way, compromising our ability to be successful in life and in our career. We are all a collection of traits that define our behaviour – in fact, Harrison Assessments lists 175 different traits. Each person is a unique collection of traits, and each trait is either expressed strongly, expressed well, or under expressed. Today, let’s quickly explore those under expressed traits that can compromise our ability to be successful in our relationships, careers and other parts of life.

Talent Analytics – Important Aspect of Workforce and People Management

Did you know that we can help you integrate Talent Analytics into the way that you do business?

Used for quite some time in many areas, analytics is becoming important in people and workforce management. Google, a forerunner in many areas of people management, uses analytics to gain insights into the impact of interviews and sources of hire. Facebook uses analytics to analyse factors that correlate with  high performer retention. SAB uses analytics to evaluate its training.

Size does Matter – when it comes to Process Management and Improvement

Process Management gets a poor deal in most organisations. It is surprising, as the quality of your processes has a direct bearing on productivity and result. Your set of processes includes all of your operational processes and all of your organisational and leadership processes. For example, it would include your strategic processes, the way you review the business, interact with suppliers, manage data, and more. When you look at an organisation’s structure and size of the departments/functions, it is easy to tell a lot about its health and ability to withstand changes in the market place from the location in the structure of different departments, and their sizes. So my question for you today is: What is the relative size of these functions in your organisation:

Emotional Intelligence and Fakery

Emotional Intelligence (EI, or EQ – Emotional Quotient) was been a consistent topic in leadership circles for 30 years, and it has been written about from the 1930s.

It is rare for a concept, theory or idea to remain at the forefront of organisational thinking for so long. One of the most well-known contributors to our understanding of EQ is Daniel Goleman, and his book Emotional Intelligence. Around the same time, Covey was publishing his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and he went on to relate the habits to Emotional Intelligence.

The idea behind EQ is that our ability to relate meaningfully with other people matters more than our IQ. The concept goes deeper than the usual set of good communication skills, and includes the ability to empathise, and to manage your own and others’ emotions.

Conversation as a Core Strategic Process

The most widespread and pervasive development and learning no longer occurs in workshops, classrooms, conference rooms or boardrooms. It occurs over coffee, around the water cooler, in the corridors and the team’s kitchen. It is in emails, skype sessions, phone calls, instant messages, intranet-based groups and any internal social media applications. Every conversation is an opportunity to delve deeper, be more innovative, reinforce values, explain strategic priorities, support, inspire, ask questions, provide information and advice, share history, and (most of all) listen. Inquire about issues, approaches, opinions, experiences, obstacles. Spark a new insight, investigate a new perspective, explore an alternative path, suggest other sources of information. Offer feedback, seek feedback, ask advice. Make the person feel valued.