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‘Mission’, ‘Purpose’, ‘Vision’. If you fake it, you will fail.
Mission statement, vision, purpose. Whatever you want to call it, here’s how you know if you’re truly living it. This post from Fergus Smith on LinkedIn got me thinking about how business owners can truly figure out if they are living the mission so many so desperately want to be recognised for in their businesses. If…
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‘Quitting is for winners.’ Are entertainer entrepreneurs the reason for the Great Resignation?
Dr. Eliza Filby’s article on entertainer entrepreneur Steven Bartlett makes for an absorbing read – and gives a fresh perspective on the potential driver of the Great Resignation. Filby’s article explores how Bartlett, and the raft of other entrepreneur entertainers who are filling venues with hundreds of adoring, feet-stomping, ‘all you need is you’ fans across the…
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Watch: Caroline Hunt from Emerald Starfish on the benefits of using an outsourced recruitment department
Caroline Hunt runs Emerald Starfish, a recruitment company with a difference. Caroline and I came across each other due to the ongoing problem almost all service businesses are having with recruiting talent. In the past I’ve talked extensively about the importance of re-recruiting your teams, but the issues around bringing in new people remains a…
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Gartner’s State of Marketing Budgets 2021
Gartner’s State of Marketing Budgets 2021 summary is here. Some of you may already have taken a look, but it’s a valuable set of insights for agencies I thought was worthy of a share. One of the big ‘watch outs’ is that 29% of agency work shifted to internal teams – perhaps temporary as organisations undertook…
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‘Fewer’ or ‘less’ – think you know when to use them?
What to Know Generally, fewer is used when the number of things is counted (“fewer problems”) whereas lessis used when the number is measured (“less trouble” or “less time”). However, this is not a strict rule and there are accepted instances of less being used with countable amounts such as “250 words or less,” “3 items or less,” and especially…
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Examples, Expand, Evidence – a simple technique for reviewing documents
An incredibly simple and effective technique I’ve been using to help when I’m reviewing a draft article. When I’m doing my read through, I simply drop one of these three words in as I go: ‘Examples’, ‘Expand’, ‘Evidence’. By scrawling these simple words in the margins or as a note in a digital document I’m able…
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Productive Newbies – helping new starters feel valued and contributory, quickly
As a result of Covid-19, businesses are seeing a significant ‘capabilities’ gap, especially in industries that were unable to maintain training and employee development over the past couple of years. So how can you make sure that your new starts – who you will rely on more and more – hit the ground running and…
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Reframing stress.
Something leaders frequently face is their teams coming to them and sharing feelings of stress. But here’s the problem, stress is contagious. I came to write this article after hearing from my clients about the impact stressed employees have on them as leaders and subsequent impact on wider teams. They wanted teams to share their…
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A promise (and an example of great leadership)
Sharing what I believe is a great act of leadership from Nikki Cunningham, MD at Curious. This ‘promise’, written and hand signed by Nikki, was handed out to each member of a team during a manifesto meeting exploring the future of Curious. It’s a strong statement which – I think – achieves a number of…
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The disappearing manager. Reasons your management team are defecting.
Managers are leaving and your best team members are unlikely to want to step into their shoes. How are they feeling and what can you do? I’ve commented before on the current middle management shift, and an article I read recently in Fortune highlighted in detail the pressures and problem managers are facing. The brutal…
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Practical scenario planning – a simple model
An introductory guide to using scenario planning for smaller businesses During a recent workshop with a client I was once again reminded of the usefulness of scenario planning. I thought it was a great time to reshare a really simple model you can use in your business to try and plan for the future. In…
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etc is Hiring – Digital Marketing Manager (Part Time)
Role in brief: Digital Marketing Manager (Fully Remote / Part Time) – 3/4 days per week (approx 16 hours) Salary – up to £50,000 FTE (pro rata to agreed hours) We’re looking for an experienced digital marketing professional to support our business development efforts with communications to our prospective and established audiences. Please note that…
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Too busy leading to be learning
This article is centred around something I discovered for myself through my own personal coaching – namely being too busy leading that I wasn’t making the time to learn. Here’s the thing. If you’re the founder of a business – or indeed a leader of any sort within a business – you are likely to…
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An idea: reverse mentoring
An idea that came to me a couple of weeks ago after a friend pointed out a potential problem with the name of one of our LinkedIn events, ‘Slack Slavery’. He noted the sensitivities around using the word, even when it was certainly referring to being at the mercy of a specific platform rather than…
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Choose your hat.
Primarily, the article is about hats. In a small business, it’s sometimes difficult to be clear about your role at any given time. But, if you’re both a shareholder and a part of the leadership team – it’s so important to have absolute clarity about which of those roles you’re playing when attending meetings or having conversations…
