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How to give feedback that sticks

Great leaders are great learners. It’s their constant drive to improve that sets them aside from others. Providing feedback is one of the most critical management tasks, however it often gets pushed down on managers’ to do lists and the conversation only happens during annual performance reviews. But giving regular feedback doesn’t have to be difficult or formal – Adobe being a great example, as they recently ditched formal performance appraisals and replaced them with informal check-in conversations focused on three key elements: expectations, feedback and growth and development. Discussing these three areas means that both sides know they’ve had a meaningful conversation and it helps them

Managing attention instead of time

Sometimes, at the end of a busy day it’s really hard to figure out where the time went. In fact, according to Gallup’s research, 80% of people don’t have the time to do what they want to get done each day. Time poor people experience higher levels of anxiety and stress, their health and productivity at work are diminished, and on a broader level, time poverty accounts for billions in productivity cost to organisations each year. But very often, the root of the problem is not managing time, but managing attention. Distraction is one of the biggest hurdles to high quality work, costing the economy almost 1 trillion dollars annually. The problem is not just that we’re getting distracted from wo

The positive effect of admitting to failure

According to a recent Harvard Business School research, leaders who admit failures on their path to success can win over their colleagues and make them more authentic and approachable. Learning about leadership mistakes also helps other team members to be motivated to improve their own performance. People are often reluctant to admit to their mistakes, both when they are happening and in retrospect. Confessing to our mistakes and setbacks is counterintuitive – we often chose to talk about our achievements and hide failures. However, leaders who only talk about their success can come across as arrogant and showing off. According to the research, revealing successes as well failures can limit

Overcoming motivational barriers

Motivation accounts for 40 percent of the success of team projects. However, managers are often struggling to effectively motivate uninspired employees. Effective self-motivation is one of the key factors differentiating high-achieving individuals from others. To a certain extent, motivation is personal – what motivates one person, means nothing to another, and some of us find motivating ourselves easier than others. However, there are common personal effectiveness strategies that work for most people, from short term to long term initiatives. To drive personal effectiveness, it’s essential for leaders at all levels to define and understand what success looks like and create an action plan f

 

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