During a recent conversation with a family member about the data-age, she shared with me that she never thought there would be so much data at her fingertips -- anything and everything you could ever think of. We both agreed that no matter what “data” was available through online resources, friends, for example, nothing would take the place of experiencing first-hand what you just Googled.
But just how good are we at adapting to change, modifying our habits, or expanding our minds, especially as we get older? The answer is that we’re pretty good at it if we choose to be.
Not long ago the prevailing scientific powers believed that we are born with a brain that undergoes great change in infancy and early childhood, but then prunes down to the executive organ we have throughout our lives.
We conducted a Q&A interview with Paul Heywood, Founder and Managing Director of Halcyon Life, regarding resilience programmes and employee engagement.
1. Could you introduce yourself and what you do?
I am Founder and Managing Director of Halcyon Life. Previously, I was IT Director at 3i, a FTSE100 Private Equity firm, and at the law firm Fieldfisher. I have also held senior positions at Allen & Overy, WHSmith, L’Oréal, EY and Ford Motor Company.
Mark De Stadler from Dale Carnegie discusses the main drivers of employee engagement. He discusses Dale Carnegie's research in this area, and the outcome which identified 3 key areas for employee engagement:
Mark discusses how the relationship with your immediate supervisor is the most influential on employee engagement, emphasising the importance of training and developing brilliant managers to encourage your employees.
You’re about to embark on a change programme, you’ve spent weeks or months planning the changes behind the scenes and you’ve announced the changes to your people. You’ve got a communication plan with all of the announcements, the meetings and the emails scheduled and still your people don’t seem engaged with the changes or understand the reasons for them – what’s next?
Workplace Wellness programs are all the rage these days – and rightly so.
You don't need to be a doctor, analyst or accountant to realize that healthier employees are going to take less sick days and be more productive while at work....which obviously helps the bottom-line.
And it's also true that for many employees, a healthier body also leads to less stress, emotional well-being and a happier mindset.
Simply put, a fit and healthy workforce makes good business sense.
Much has been written about current middle management roles becoming increasingly irrelevant,ANZ's Digital Chief Maile Carnegie a few months ago famously referring to the 'frozen middle' who "have graduated from doing to managing and basically bossing other people around and shuffling Powerpoints", who also "resist change like death." Carnegie highlighting the importance of distributed leadership and del
Data and culture have a significant part to play in the successful transformation of businesses. Tim looks at how data can be used to affect change and drive value within a business, whilst being cognizant of the culture of the business.
Tim discusses the importance of a roadmap and planning during transformation, emphasising the role of communication. He considers the most important part of communication to obtain buy-in for a transformation.
We are far better at planning for the short-term than we are for the long-term.
Think about when you get in the car. If you don’t know where you are going, you tap in the details to a sat-nav system to tell you the route. You might have an advanced system that updates itself to find quicker routes if there is traffic.
You probably know what you’re doing this weekend and maybe even the weekend after. You might even have planned your summer holiday.
The first challenges are cutting through the noise and getting to the heart of the matter. The IT sector pretend transformation is all to do with technology (usually the box of tricks they’re selling). They frequently publish blogs and articles to convince you to “transform your business by moving to the cloud”. Most mainstream IT advice will create operational efficiencies at best, but not transform the organisation.