Productivity

Multi-million-dollar pitch coach Michelle Bowen believes there’s four main approaches to persuading the people around us.

All the time management strategies in the world won’t help if there is simply too much work to do. Start saying no and taking back your day.

While it’s useful to know what you want to achieve and the direction you want to take, goal-setting might not actually be the best way to get you there.

In times of increased burnout and growing workloads, chasing perfect can be both time wasting and soul destroying.

Create a list of things you will not do the following month. Keep this list in eyesight of your desk to act as a constant reminder.

While there’s no question that mental health and wellbeing training is improving and benefiting many, are we focusing on the wrong things?

Time spent in passive mode in a meeting – quietly, not contributing, listening – highlights the reason why synchronous work like meetings can feel so wasteful.

A critical step required to overcome the inertia for change is to tap into employees’ psyche to understand what some of the blockers under the surface could be. Individually, people may have personal concerns, such as their fear that they will lose their job to someone else or that the organisational culture will change. Collectively, the corporate culture may lead people to resist change as the new initiative is not how ‘we do things here’.

Deadlines are useful, but it’s your capacity that will drive your success.

Listening, responding and validating people’s situations, stories and concerns continue to be some of the most powerful leadership capabilities. Having a solid and respectful leader in times that are tough is often what employees value most of all.