10minuteHR

Short time. Great inspirations.

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Mindfulness is worth it. All you have to do is practise.

A guest article written by Dr. Ádám Márky

mind-full-or-mindful-ccWhy is it that in today’s society, a society reliant on and shaped by modern technology, more and more people are showing an interest in a several-thousand-year-old tradition for which you need no gadgets at all?

Mindfulness – or more specifically ‘conscious presence’ and the greatest way to practise it, meditation – has been proven to be an effective as both a preventative measure and remedy to a wide range of illnesses; it also nowadays constitutes an organic part of the organizational culture of many of the largest global enterprises. Western science has presumably reached the level where it can prove what people in the East have known through experience for thousands of years: A daily 10-minute attention practice actually brings measurable and observable positive changes to our bodies. Read More

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5 Useful Tips before you Launch your New Mentoring Programme

mentoringImagine an organisation…

…where best-practice sharing is part of everyday life.

…where senior professionals freely and openly share their knowledge with junior colleagues.

…where young talents are highly motivated because their skills develop quickly thanks to the guidance of their more experienced colleagues.

Okay, this might the idealistic picture of an organisation with a highly successful mentoring programme, but would it not be great for it to be the case in your own company? Read More

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Seven Inspiring Quotes on Customer Service

customer focusGreat customer service starts with the right attitude. And from time to time somebody says something that perfectly encapsulates the mindset needed to deliver “excellent customer service”.

During the preparation for a large corporate bank’s “client-focus” training I collected some great quotes that, for me, hit the nail right on the head when it comes to finding the right attitude. These quotes inspired me a great deal. I hope they will have the same effect on you.

  1. “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they do wrong.” – Donald Porter
  1. “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” – Walt Disney

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When you should use hands-on management and when you should let go

Leadership - by novishari

Hands-on or hands-off? – by novishari

Every leader has their own unique leadership style

Some managers are very good at communicating clear expectations, specifying roles and responsibilities, and creating clarity in general.  Others’ strengths lie in the ability to motivate and energise their team by giving lots of feedback and encouragement.

Some leaders prefer a hands-on management approach. They are excellent at monitoring how tasks are being carried out and thus they can help out whenever a difficulty arises, giving their team the advice they need.  Others tend to let their staff solve problems on their own and try to get involved only when it is absolutely necessary, thus giving their team the freedom they need.

Which of these leadership styles is the best? Read More

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The vicious circle of micromanagement

Micromanagement - by novishari

Micromanagement – by novishari

The manager buries his head in his hands. He complains: “I am exhausted. I have been working my backside off all year. My team has been hopeless recently. Whenever they write an internal report or a proposal for a client I have to spend another half a day working on it to get it done properly. My boss says that I should delegate more. But I haven’t got time to babysit my subordinates, to keep explaining why something is wrong and how to change it. By the time I’ve explained it all, I might as well have done it myself.”

Have you ever had a similar experience as a manager? Has it ever occurred to you that your team’s perceived incompetence might have something to do with your management style?

“Hands-on” managers who are deeply involved in the operative execution of tasks often complain about their team’s incompetence. They feel that their subordinates’ lack of skills and knowledge makes it necessary for them to get deeply involved in all operations.

On the other hand, when we talk to these very same subordinates they tell us that they feel micromanaged. They say they are capable of taking on more responsibilities. They complain that they are suffocating from the high level of control and a lack of freedom to make their own decisions.

Three reasons why a micromanager’s team gets more and more incompetent

If you are a manager who keeps a very tight reign by maintaining a high level of control, three things are likely to happen in your team: Read More

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Working with those damned foreigners… How to improve your own cultural intelligence and that of your colleagues

Collection-national-flagsDo you work or have you ever worked in an international environment? Do you do business with people of different nationalities from yours? If you do, you might have suffered the embarrassment of cracking a joke and none of the “foreigners” even feigning a smile. Or a time when you have offended someone, in spite of your best intentions, only because you were unaware of the unwritten rules of another culture. In theory, we all know that cultural differences exist. But if we are not aware of the exact nature of those differences, we can drop ourselves in some awkward and sometimes humiliating situations. Read More

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4 stress-reducing techniques that take only five minutes

Relaxing at work - by novishari

Relaxing at work – by novishari

Are you stressed at work? Quite probably – even if sometimes you are not aware of it. And it is equally likely that you have heard or been told that you should change your lifestyle in order to relieve this stress. Maybe you should work less. Sleep more. Do more exercise. Or drink less coffee, eat better, and so on.

 

It seems like a big project. Perhaps this is why you haven’t started yet.

While I strongly believe that long-term fundamental changes to our lifestyles is the ultimate answer to the problem of stress, I also believe that any small step that can reduce stress levels is very useful. In fact, such simple techniques can be the first steps towards some more fundamental lifestyle changes.

In this post we will look at four quick and simple 5-minute techniques that you can try TODAY; four simple methods to give you some relief here and now. Doing them several times a day can help you keep your stress levels down. Read More

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I have almost written a post about procrastination

procrastination is exhaustingAfter almost a year of nearly starting, stopping, thinking again and then finally getting round to launching this blog, I thought it would be appropriate to write a post about procrastination. With all this experience behind me, I think I have a lot to share.

Then one day while I was wasting my time doing the usual gloomy “Right, I really am going to write something today” business (which in my case usually means browsing the internet, daydreaming about writing great posts, having a coffee, making a phone call, browsing a bit more and then… oh my god, I am running late and I need to pick up the kids), I bumped into this article:

Why procrastinators procrastinate

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The high ROI sales development programme

business handshake“We need some sort of sales development”

“Our sales team is not doing well. The markets have shrunk and we haven’t reached our targets in the last 6 months. We need to find new ways. We need new skills. We need some sort of sales development,” complains the Head of Sales

“No problem,” says HR. “We could organise some sales training.”

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But it’s not so easy in real life.

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5 tips to make tomorrow’s big presentation a hit

Man Speaking Into MicrophonesThe big day is tomorrow. You are going to give a presentation and a lot depends on its success. With less than 24 hours left, you haven’t got much time to prepare. But, believe me, you still have the time to use these 5 tools to make your presentation snappier, more fascinating, more compact – a presentation that has an impact. Read More