Organizational conflict can occur at several levels: between individuals, between groups and between organizations. While we will focus on interpersonal conflict, the principles and ideas discussed here are also valid for inter-group and inter-organizational conflicts.
Conflict typically proceeds through four stages even if each step is not recognized as such. The phases identified by theorist Louis […]

Because street smarts are so important to every part of your life, here is a quick review of the major elements that go into street smarts. Print this list out and keep it with you, for a regular reminder to be street smart every day.
I. Heightened Awareness
A. Trust your intuition
B. Develop perceptiveness and ability to […]

Australia, Sunday the 15th April, travellers returning from Hawaii via one of our local airlines, the aircraft has technical issues so they were held up for up to three days. The overriding issue all travellers  interviewed on TV mentioned was, “They did not tell us what was going on…”
So they were frustrated, many saying they […]

Enjoy this compiled list of “Tonyisms” with your morning cup of coffee!
- To achieve more and better results, more resourcefulness is as important as more resources.
- Anything in excess is a poison.
- One of the problems with the future is that good things always take longer than they should, whereas bad things happen right away.
- […]

With a shrinking job market and an ageing workforce there are higher levels of competition for workers in the western world than probably at any time in our history.
How then will employers handle this situation and create workplaces, which employees will love to work in, be delighted by the work they do and generally be […]

Adaptability is your willingness and ability to behave in ways that are not necessarily characteristic of your style in order to deal effectively with the requirements of a situation or relationship. Adaptable people make the choice to go beyond their own comfort zones so others feel more comfortable.
With adaptability, you can treat people the way […]

So you want to be, or are in business, how come? What motivates you, or drives you to do it, or want to do it?
For many its the percieved lifestyle (golfing fishing, haning out with business buddies while others are working for you), or is it the money, or the sense of achievement…. […]

When it comes to leadership, business operators are given the reigns often by default rather than as a planned part of the process. So here’s a framework you can use as a starting point. At any time you can refer back to it and ask yorself, “How am I doing in each of these areas?” […]

Self-confidence is the food that feeds our personal growth. It is an indispensable part of achievement. Self-confidence stems from the self-awareness of our intrinsic worth as individuals. We are blessed with an incredible amount of potential, most of which is untapped. George Santayana once wrote, “Man is as full of potentiality as he is of […]

Do you have a mobile phone… is the provider any good? Mine wasn’t so I changed, I went elsewhere.
What surprised me the most was that there was no contact from the original provider as to why I had left. If they had called me I would have TOLD them about their many failings. It’s the […]

You run the business, you worked your fingers to the bone to get it up from zero to hero, you finally leveraged your way to add in some employees, and after all that you are starting to make the whole thing pay for itself handsomely. Well done.
So what’s your job now… In the begining you […]

Are you like a lot of people, busy with the little things in your business? Are you finding that although things seem to get done, there is little change to your business performance and or profitability?
In a recent Blog I wrote about to do lists and focussing on getting things out of your mind and […]

As someone once advised, “Grow antennae, not horns.” If you prejudge someone as shallow, crazy, or ill informed, you automatically cease paying attention to what they say. So a basic rule of listening is to judge only after you have heard and evaluated what they say. Do not jump to conclusions based on how they […]

What gets in the way of great service, great planning, great production, great products. GREAT BUSINESS!
A. “Things”.
I guess you could stop work for a while and analyse all the things that get in the way of doing great business but the fact is you probably can not justify the downtime.
May I suggest  you make mental […]

Then what happened?
Most of us are busy in our organisation/s doing what comes naturally or otherwise, so what did you focus on today, or yesterday for that matter. Was it spot fires, hassles that arose, customer complaints, calls to suppliers, and what about the marketing?
Yes, most of us are very busy, so the point about […]

“The reason you don’t understand me, Edith, is because I’m talkin’ to you in English and you’re listenin’ to me in dingbat!” - Archie Bunker
Archie was right about finding a common language or wavelength, but it takes two to communicate– the speaker and the listener. Both need to make the effort to understand each other. […]

Want to get through the lean times and come out on top? Want to be at the forefront of your business area but find you are always end up behind? Here are a few ideas to get things moving, even in a difficult market place, the only thing you need to do is implement them!
1.  […]

Choosing a professional speaker or corporate trainer can be a daunting and risky task.  There are thousands of speakers all over the world so how do you choose?  My advice  is to engage a bureau. The reason for this is that we know who the best speakers are and have existing relationships with them.  Many bureaus have […]

“Negotiating is the
most highly paid work
you will ever do. You
are generally making
more per hour when
you negotiate than
anything else you’ll
ever do!””
Wayne Berry

This situation is NOT the negotiation. It’s the end result of the […]

Don’t Make These Mistakes!
As I work with sales people and sales managers I see some  fatal mistakes being made as they negotiate.

May I share some of these here with you now in the hope that their “learning experiences” will benefit you and remind you of the importance of not falling into these “traps”.
Indeed, you may […]

This topic generated lots of interest when I mentioned it in the leader column, so I thought I’d write a full-blown article on making space for ideas.While running a workshop earlier in the year, I was talking about the topic of ideas to the assembled group of soloists. I began by asking the simple little question:
“What’s so good […]

Corporate training is an investment, not an expense, but how do you choose an appropriate trainer? Firstly, establish what skills are lacking in the company.
Choosing the right type of training programme can be a daunting task. If you haven’t researched the needs of your people, don’t waste your budget on training; make sure it is […]

Tom Peters Business Author and world wide management ‘Guru’ says,“Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence - only in constant improvement and constant change.”
-Tom Peters
An interesting thought. Why label an organisation as excellent and or set a ‘benchmark’ to a certain level of operation or standard. Why not consider the benefits of a constantly developing workforce […]

This isn’t just for CEOs. It’s for everyone. Score yourself with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for each of these and see how many you get out of 11. Be honest: no-one else will know but you.
1. Arrogance. You’re right. Everyone else is wrong.
2. Melodrama. You always grab the centre of attention.
3. Volatility. Your mood shifts […]

In order to control your time, you have to know what you are doing with it now. The best way to determine this is to do an exercise that takes a maximum of a half an hour a day for 10 days. You will not have to go on a crash diet or run three […]

“To succeed, your business must not focus on selling, but on providing solutions to your customers. When you focus on providing solutions, something awesome happens: your business product offerings will never become obsolete. Instead, they’ll thrive toward meeting customer needs–no matter the era.”
Inspired by Theodore Levitt
The challenge is knowing what they need, on knowing that […]

Fear stops many of us from truly expressing who we are and achieving our dreams. Some of us are risk takers, all of us make mistakes and I would say all of us have experienced fear at some stage or another. In this article I am talking about the type of fear that stops us from moving […]

1. Vision
All successful people have vision. They have the ability the “see” clearly what they want before it exits.
I’d have to agree with Mr Gates on that one. All of the successful people I have known and […]

A number of the world’s all-time great geniuses were at first thought to be anything but gifted.
Einstein, we know, left school in Germany because of poor grades in history and the language arts. The problem wasn’t Einstein, of course, but the type of learning he was forced to do, which required a lot of rote […]

Has the world changed so drastically that manners are no longer considered necessary? Is a thank you or a quick acknolwedgement of an email too hard to do in our busy and stressed out working lives?
How can we change this poor culture and start treating each other with some common courtesy and respect again?   
Here are […]

I love working with businesses as they are made up of people as the main part of the mechanism to make the organisation work, but all too often companies run into negative people issues and that can mean things may not go quite as planned some times. I developed this list in response to a […]

Could non religious spirituality have an intrinsic and or extrinsic value to your organisation? And what would it take to foster this in your organisation? Would the team “buy in” easily or would things have to be disguised in some way to make it seem like a secondary thing…
Consider this, Non religious spirituality essentially could […]

Have you ever had that sinking feeling, when the day simply slides in to a black hole, and sometimes it happens within moments! I have, but in particular I had it a few years back on walking into a business I was invited to evaluate and advise.
The sinking feeling came pretty quickly as I looked […]

Allan and Barbara Pease are the internationally renowned experts on human relations and body language. 20 million book sales worldwide have turned them into household name internationally.
Did you know that according to Allan Pease…

Being ‘perceptive’ means being able to spot the contradictions between someone’s words and their body language.
And that overall women are […]

Occasionally we hear stories of people who struggle against great odds, prove the naysayers wrong, and achieve the nearly impossible. They turn around a defunct company; they stop a highway from going through virgin land; they beat the odds on terminal cancer.
In order to do extraordinary things, these people - and you! - don’t need […]

Back in the early 70’s, recently accredited with my MBA and happily engaged in my first college teaching position, a friend asked me what my long-term career goal was. When I answered that I would like to eventually become the president of a large university, my friend chuckled and replied, “Tony, there’s no way!” I […]

***ATTENTION /NOTICE*** Please read the entire article before drawing any conclusions or posting any reply. This article uses extremes to make a point in a thought-provoking manner. Absolutely no malice is intended.
Hitler was a great leader. Through his guidance, dedication and sense of what was right, he changed and influenced the lives of […]

There are so many average businesses, so why are the excellent ones few and far between?
If you start out to do something, do you start with excellence in mind or mediocrity? I guess the answer is excellence, after all why would you want to create an average thing, where is the logic in that?
So go […]

I walked in the door, no sales person. I called out, no answer. I stood and checked out the display before calling out again, No answer. Finally a person came out and stretched with a wide yawn, “Ehr g’day, I didn’t know you were there… I was taking a snooze out the back. Must have […]