Last week I started a new job. Always a little bit of a worry, the nerves kick in, the questions formulate in our heads. A little nerves are good, they show we care about things. We start to have that nervous/excited feeling where can’t quite work out which is the strongest feeling. Continue reading
Career
Reach and Impact
How often do we ever give any thought to our reach and impact?
As a person, friend, family member or colleague?
For me I am usually too busy being me, helping out, guiding, coaching, mentoring and just doing what I can to really spare too much brainpower on wondering how wide is my reach and what is my impact.
Recently two things happened which changed that. Continue reading
Presenteeism – good or bad?
It isn’t so long ago that absenteeism was the scourge of the workplace. Colleagues taking duvet days, or time off sick. We were all over looking at it and managing the reasons why.
Recently I am noticing the rise of something else, in fact the complete opposite. Presenteeism. Continue reading
Self Reflection
I used to think that self-reflection was new age, hippy dippy nonsense that I didn’t have time for. Then my mind was opened. When I worked in healthcare there was always protected time for colleagues for reflection. My question was always was it worth it, as I didn’t see the point. A very patient colleague sat me down and explained supervision and self-reflection to me. Continue reading
Egos
Egos – where to start. I guess with saying that in my opinion I am not an egotistical person. In my own head I like to think that I am a fairly even, balanced person, that I only give input when necessary, and that actually I personally place little value on most of my input, even when others tell me otherwise.
However, I write a blog, so I have decided that my opinion matters and should be heard. Alongside that I tweet prolifically. Again me deciding my thoughts need to be shared. So I must have a slight ego there. Continue reading
My future – my career, my choice
This week I did something new. For what I think is the first time I made an active choice about my career.
In the past I have made active choices to leave jobs, organisations and managers. Also I have had choices made for me through redundancies.
Though, as I suspect is the case with all of us, these changes have just led to me choosing the least worst option from roles I see at that time. Continue reading
Imposter Syndrome – When will I be found out?
I’m starting this blog by doing the thing you aren’t supposed to do – going off topic. Slightly.
If you speak to people who know me professionally, they will tell you I am confident, opinionated, passionate, tenacious and fight my corner to achieve and be the best I can (I hope). That’s my work persona, Professional Pete. Continue reading
Managing, Mentoring, Coaching – how do you help your team to grow without smothering
When I first started my working life, several years ago now, things were relatively simple. My first employer was a large Chemical company and I joined them on a Youth Training Scheme. This meant I had some training in the wold of work, setting expectations, and setting out what I could expect. Continue reading
Managing, Coping or Reacting – when did the remit change?
When I think back over my career I can see that there have been people who have held a ‘management’ post in various organisation I have worked for who have truly managed. Be that people, process or projects.
When I sit back today and reflect on those of us, myself included, who are managers I wonder how much of our time we actually spend managing. Continue reading
Why do we fear failure?
Outside of my working life I am on a long and continuing journey to better health and fitness. As part of this I have had a personal trainer. In one of our sessions he asked me why I was afraid to fail. This made me start to think about my working life as well as training and whether there were differences.
Firstly I wanted to describe my attitude to failure. Continue reading
Pete Greensmith 