Practice Notes

Reminder to join us for the next two Tea and Toast learning sessions

If you haven't attended one yet, then come along to one of our Tea and Toast hour-long sessions. They're free and open to everyone. Thanks to those of you who have already told us your coming.

Storytelling: its role in communicating business ideas

The World Bank and Sky City are just two organisations that use storytelling to get their messages across. Why is it effective? What techniques can you use?

Date: Wednesday 4 May

Time: 8am - 9am

Venue: Boardroom, Level 5, Newspaper House, 93, Boulcott Street

Speaker: Hilary Bryan, The Training Practice director

Email katherine@trainingpractice.co.nz if you want to come. All welcome and no charge.

Mediating workplace conflict

Jon Everest, The Training Practice Associate, and workplace mediator will present this session. He's got plenty of hands on experience in the workplace and also runs anti-violence programmes.

Date: Monday 30 May

Time: 8am - 9am

Venue: Boardroom, Level 5, Newspaper House, 93, Boulcott Street

Speaker: Jon Everest, The Training Practice Associate

Email katherine@trainingpractice.co.nz if you want to come. All welcome and no charge.

What great managers do

Marcus Buckingham has just published some interesting insights into great managers in the March 2005, Harvard Business Review. So, what does he think great managers do? To find out, he studied survey results from 80,000 managers and then studied a far fewer number of top performers.

He concluded that "while there are as many styles of management as there are managers, there is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: they discover what is unique about each person and capitalise on it." Buckingham argues that great managers find out each employee's strengths. Then, they work out, how to trigger this strength, so it translates into high performance. Lastly the great manager coaches and communicates with each staff member having tuned into their individual learning style. This may be analytical, kinesthetic (doing), watching, or a combination of two or all three of them.

So, according to Buckingham, it's not about moulding or transforming each employee into the perfect version of their role. Instead, he states: "A manager's most important resource is time, and great managers know that the most effective way to invest their time is to identify exactly how each employee is different and then figure out how best to incorporate those enduring idiosyncrasies into the overall plan."

Residential management programme - November 2005

The NZ College of Management folded a while ago. Now, Management Learning Associates Ltd has taken over some of their residential programmes. Towards Management Excellence is a week-long programme scheduled from 6 - 11 November 2005, in Beachlands, Auckland. Check out www.mgmtlearning.co.nz for more details.