Part 3: Caution emotion at work – How to handle someone else’s anger at work
This is the third in a series on emotion at work. Having looked last time at how to handle your own anger at work, this month I'm focusing on dealing with someone else's anger. Angry people can be intimidating, so it's useful to have strategies for dealing with them, depending on where their anger is directed. 1. Rage against the machine The photocopier has jammed for the umpteenth time just as your colleague is preparing copies of a really important document. Your colleague snaps. This is probably the easiest example of anger to deal with as you can probably just ...
Part 2: Caution emotion at work – How to handle your anger at work
This is the second in a short series on emotion at work. Last month I tackled anxiety, this month I'm moving on to anger. I realised while writing this that there's enough to say about handling your own anger at work to fill an article, so I'm saving other people's anger til next time. Anger tends to be the emotion we're most wary of but in itself it's perfectly healthy. It's what we do with it that makes it scary. There are a number of unhelpful ways to handle anger and many of us have default settings, though they may ...
Part 1: Caution emotion at work – Managing and supporting personal anxiety
Wouldn't it be great if work was a place of calm and rationality all the time? Somewhere where you didn't have to deal with messy feelings - yours or anyone else's. In the not too distant future, when we've mostly been replaced by robots, that'll probably be the case, but until then emotions will remain an integral part of work. They're part of what makes us human. On the other hand, the regulation, and appropriate expression, of those emotions is what makes us mature humans. So with that in mind, I thought I'd do a short series on feelings at ...
Passing the baton – A succession planning guide
How do you hand on a business you’ve spent years nurturing? This is a challenge facing many business owners as they eventually accept that they cannot go on forever. This month I’ve teamed up with Peter Jenner, from William Battle Ltd, who specialises in business succession to compare his process-focused approach with my psychological perspective. Peter has a model which aims to plot a course for successful succession, which he envisages as concentric circles radiating out like ripples from the centre, though obviously there’s overlap between them. Aspirations Peter says: Everything starts with aspirations – yours and those of your likely ...
Business is business – Six pitfalls of family business leadership
First and foremost, family businesses are businesses. Like all organisations they require good leadership. In this article, I'd like to highlight some of the common pitfalls of family business leadership. But first, let's recap what leadership involves. In a previous article, I talked about what leaders do based on a leadership model called the Primary Colours® Model. The model identifies the tasks of leadership, which fall into three domains - strategic, interpersonal and operational. Leaders need to work out where they are going, get all the relevant people aligned around that strategy and create some plans and processes to make it happen. ...
Five strategies for avoiding conflict and why you should ditch them all
What do you think of when you hear the word 'conflict'? I think for a lot of us, conflict conjures up a particularly bad Eastenders' Christmas - raised voices, harsh words, fists flying, someone trying to calm things down by saying "Leave it Barry, he ain't worth it". In fact, many of us are so afraid of this kind of conflict that we are masters at staying away from it altogether. Brits are renowned for not really saying what we mean. Just think how many layers of meaning we can get into the word 'fine' - "No really, I'm fine"; "Fine, ...
Can I trust you? Six aspects of human interaction where questions of trust arise
I've been thinking a lot about trust lately, partly because I've been working with teams. Trust is the bedrock of team work, but the more I talk and read about it, the more I realise that we're not always talking about the same thing. It's not as straightforward as 'I trust you or I don't'. It's not even about trusting some people more than others. What people rarely seem to discuss is what it is that we might trust people to do or not do. Fundamentally, trust seems to boil down to the question, 'In my interactions with you, will ...
Think you’re a good listener? Seven scenarios where you might not be listening as well as you could
How good a listener are you? I was reminded of the importance of good listening recently while attending a talk by a coach who brings real focus and attention to her coaching. Her clients really do get a damn good listening to. I like to think that mine do too, but it made me reflect on the times when perhaps I don't listen as well as I could. I think most of us could benefit from improving our listening skills, so with that in mind, here are seven scenarios to watch out for, when you really might not listen as well as you ...
The great taboos. The legal and psychological ramifications of discussing politics and religion at work
“Never discuss religion or politics”. This sage advice has been around for at least a century. But in these days of Brexit and Trump, politics seems harder and harder to avoid and religion has got wrapped up in it in a way it hasn’t been – or at least not in the UK – for decades. So what happens when people’s strongly held views on these subjects spill over into work? This month, I’ve teamed up with employment law barrister, Joanne Sefton of Menzies Law, to look at both the psychological and the legal aspects of politics and religion at ...
You can lead a horse to water – A powerful psychological technique to encourage change
How do you persuade people to change? Maybe you have a colleague or a client who stubbornly refuses to do the one thing that everyone else can see would be in their best interests – the overloaded manager who won't delegate, the blundering leader who really needs coaching but sees it as a navel-gazing waste of time; the 60-something family business owner who really wants to hand the business on to his children “one day” but refuses to talk about succession planning. Perhaps you’ve tried all your best arguments, outlined the problem and painted a positive vision of change and ...
Part 3: Caution emotion at work – How to handle someone else’s anger at work
This is the third in a series on emotion at work. Having looked last time at how to handle your own anger at work, this month I'm focusing on dealing with someone else's anger. Angry people can be intimidating, so it's useful to have strategies for dealing with them, depending on where their anger is directed. 1. Rage against the machine The photocopier has jammed for the umpteenth time just as your colleague is preparing copies of a really important document. Your colleague snaps. This is probably the easiest example of anger to deal with as you can probably just ...
Part 2: Caution emotion at work – How to handle your anger at work
This is the second in a short series on emotion at work. Last month I tackled anxiety, this month I'm moving on to anger. I realised while writing this that there's enough to say about handling your own anger at work to fill an article, so I'm saving other people's anger til next time. Anger tends to be the emotion we're most wary of but in itself it's perfectly healthy. It's what we do with it that makes it scary. There are a number of unhelpful ways to handle anger and many of us have default settings, though they may ...
Part 1: Caution emotion at work – Managing and supporting personal anxiety
Wouldn't it be great if work was a place of calm and rationality all the time? Somewhere where you didn't have to deal with messy feelings - yours or anyone else's. In the not too distant future, when we've mostly been replaced by robots, that'll probably be the case, but until then emotions will remain an integral part of work. They're part of what makes us human. On the other hand, the regulation, and appropriate expression, of those emotions is what makes us mature humans. So with that in mind, I thought I'd do a short series on feelings at ...
Passing the baton – A succession planning guide
How do you hand on a business you’ve spent years nurturing? This is a challenge facing many business owners as they eventually accept that they cannot go on forever. This month I’ve teamed up with Peter Jenner, from William Battle Ltd, who specialises in business succession to compare his process-focused approach with my psychological perspective. Peter has a model which aims to plot a course for successful succession, which he envisages as concentric circles radiating out like ripples from the centre, though obviously there’s overlap between them. Aspirations Peter says: Everything starts with aspirations – yours and those of your likely ...
Business is business – Six pitfalls of family business leadership
First and foremost, family businesses are businesses. Like all organisations they require good leadership. In this article, I'd like to highlight some of the common pitfalls of family business leadership. But first, let's recap what leadership involves. In a previous article, I talked about what leaders do based on a leadership model called the Primary Colours® Model. The model identifies the tasks of leadership, which fall into three domains - strategic, interpersonal and operational. Leaders need to work out where they are going, get all the relevant people aligned around that strategy and create some plans and processes to make it happen. ...
Five strategies for avoiding conflict and why you should ditch them all
What do you think of when you hear the word 'conflict'? I think for a lot of us, conflict conjures up a particularly bad Eastenders' Christmas - raised voices, harsh words, fists flying, someone trying to calm things down by saying "Leave it Barry, he ain't worth it". In fact, many of us are so afraid of this kind of conflict that we are masters at staying away from it altogether. Brits are renowned for not really saying what we mean. Just think how many layers of meaning we can get into the word 'fine' - "No really, I'm fine"; "Fine, ...
Can I trust you? Six aspects of human interaction where questions of trust arise
I've been thinking a lot about trust lately, partly because I've been working with teams. Trust is the bedrock of team work, but the more I talk and read about it, the more I realise that we're not always talking about the same thing. It's not as straightforward as 'I trust you or I don't'. It's not even about trusting some people more than others. What people rarely seem to discuss is what it is that we might trust people to do or not do. Fundamentally, trust seems to boil down to the question, 'In my interactions with you, will ...
Think you’re a good listener? Seven scenarios where you might not be listening as well as you could
How good a listener are you? I was reminded of the importance of good listening recently while attending a talk by a coach who brings real focus and attention to her coaching. Her clients really do get a damn good listening to. I like to think that mine do too, but it made me reflect on the times when perhaps I don't listen as well as I could. I think most of us could benefit from improving our listening skills, so with that in mind, here are seven scenarios to watch out for, when you really might not listen as well as you ...
The great taboos. The legal and psychological ramifications of discussing politics and religion at work
“Never discuss religion or politics”. This sage advice has been around for at least a century. But in these days of Brexit and Trump, politics seems harder and harder to avoid and religion has got wrapped up in it in a way it hasn’t been – or at least not in the UK – for decades. So what happens when people’s strongly held views on these subjects spill over into work? This month, I’ve teamed up with employment law barrister, Joanne Sefton of Menzies Law, to look at both the psychological and the legal aspects of politics and religion at ...
You can lead a horse to water – A powerful psychological technique to encourage change
How do you persuade people to change? Maybe you have a colleague or a client who stubbornly refuses to do the one thing that everyone else can see would be in their best interests – the overloaded manager who won't delegate, the blundering leader who really needs coaching but sees it as a navel-gazing waste of time; the 60-something family business owner who really wants to hand the business on to his children “one day” but refuses to talk about succession planning. Perhaps you’ve tried all your best arguments, outlined the problem and painted a positive vision of change and ...
