Grant Stanley Consulting

The key to instant popularity? Make people feel good about themselves. When people around you feel good about themselves, they will like you and seek more opportunities to experience the same inner glow. If it is so simple, why don’t more people do it more often?  One simple answer is that we spend too much energy focused on ourselves and our own feelings that we end up ignoring the energy of others, if only by default. Smile   Sincere smiles from the heart trigger warm, reciprocal feelings. Praise Compliment. Appreciate. Be specific and avoid insincere flattery. Look for the best in everyone and in every situation.  Ask questions that show an interest, listen attentively Use their names. Dale Carnegie, author of the perennial best seller, “How to Win Friends & Influence People,” said “a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Empathise See the world from their perspective. Reflect ...

Each year 2.7 million teaching days are lost through sickness and unauthorised absences. Last year 2,500 teachers took early retirement on grounds of ill health. An average secondary school with an average number of absences could face annual supply teacher costs of up to £150,000. Nationally, the cost is about £300 million of tax payers’ monies. More importantly, classes are disrupted, work programmes interrupted and the remaining staff are overloaded with additional workloads. More than half of teachers took almost two weeks’ worth of sick leave last year citing stress, workload and pupil behaviour. So what can be done to boost attendance? And how do you sort the ill from the ill-intentioned? Now I'm not a Teacher (and never have been), but I have managed over 300 staff and I know from experience that sometimes a small investment, on your part, can have a massive impact.  I have offered a few suggestions below, but I'm sure many of you reading this can offer a lot...

It can be seen from my transition curve that it is important for all of us to understand the impact that change will have on our own personal construct systems; and for us to be able to work through the implications for our self-perception. Any change, no matter how small, has the potential to impact on an individual and may generate conflict between existing values and beliefs and anticipated altered ones. One danger for the individual, team and organisation occurs when an individual persists in operating a set of practices that have been consistently shown to fail (or result in an undesirable consequence) in the past and that do not help extend and elaborate their world-view.  Another danger area is that of denial where people maintain operating as they always have denying that there is any change at all.   Both of these can have detrimental impact on an organisation trying to change the culture and focus of its people . Anxiety The awareness that events l...