But what did the raisins cost? How to approach ‘cost breakdown’ conversations with clients
I recently had an extended conversation with a client about a pricing issue she was wrestling with for two prospects. The background My client quoted for two jobs and both prospects came back and asked her to give a breakdown of the costs she had outlined for the projects. They…
Which singers have the biggest vocabulary in their songs
“Words of nuance, words of skill/Words of romance are a thrill/Words are stupid, words are fun/Words can put you on the run…” WordTips counted the words used by 100 modern stars and the 100 greatest singers of all time and added up the number of unique words they used per…
21 best productivity apps of 2021
This excellent list of 2021’s best productivity apps from FastCompany is a perfect way to start organising your digital life.I’ve already started utilising some of them, including listening to web articles and starting to try and change some of my own articles here on the PlayBook into read aloud options….
How to: effectively lead contractors and full time employees
As a team leader, it’s easy to assume that all people working together on a project should be treated and managed similarly. But the reality is that full-time employees (FTEs) and contractors have different motivations, expectations, and backgrounds. Putting together the best talent to create an incredible workforce would appear…
Watch: gap analysis, self-reflection and growth – The Leadership Circle and how to interpret your results with Bruce O’Brien
After sharing an article recently about The Leadership Circle – a leadership profiling model I have undertaken with my own coach and found particularly useful – I received several questions and comments about its potential and how to go about analysis of what can at first glance seem a…
Reframe.
The story of the Manchester Shoe Company, told by Benjamin Zander in his book The Art of Possibility, neatly encapsulates the power of reframing and the significance of a positive mind-set. In the early 1900s, inspired by a desire to enter a faraway market, two traveling salesmen were sent as…
TikTok – a force for good?
If TikTok were a person, they would almost certainly be the individual who spent too much time in the headmaster’s office being reprimanded. The ads, the underage users, the content, the privacy breaches, the cyber cruelty and the possible Chinese spying… it’s fair to say that the ByteDance-owned app has…
Just four hours. Do not ‘maximise your time’ or ‘optimise your day’
There’s not a lot I don’t love about this article by Oliver Burkeman. A few spoilers (but please read the full article, it’s worthy of serious consideration): Give up demanding more of yourself than three or four hours of daily high-quality mental work Do not ‘maximise your time’ or ‘optimise…
You are 14% more likely to be Fully Engaged if you trust your team leader (and other workplace findings)
The Global Workplace Study was brought to my attention by Trenton Moss, and if you’ve got some spare time it’s well worth a read. The study focuses on how COVID-19 has affected Engagement and Workplace Resilience — and the interplay between them — in 25 countries. As someone who is…
A rally to arms – take on an apprentice (and how to do it)
Some of my articles are deliberately written with the intention to cause action, and this is one of them. I’ll try to write it without sounding too earnest but in short, I can’t find a single reason why agency leaders aren’t applying to take on apprentices right now. For the…