Blog - WorkLifePsych

Jul 09

Just what exactly is ‘success’?

I was delighted to be a guest on the 'Stories of Success' podcast recently, where I and Volker Ballueder discussed a range of topics, including coaching, people development and the nature of success. The latter was most interesting to me, as I frequently see the pursuit of 'success' coming up... read more →

Jul 01

Taking stock at the half-way point

Can you believe it? We’re half-way through 2019! Yes, already. Time flies when you're having fun, right? And I do hope you're having a good year. That said, this also represents a good time to reflect on how your development journey for 2019 is going. Oh yeah. Those promises you made... read more →

Jun 16

Resilience: putting the cart before the horse?

Thursday saw me at the CIPD’s Festival of Work, participating in a session on the future skills required in an ‘age of automation’. Each of the five speakers in my session had five minutes to make their key points, after which we participated in an open Q&A session. I focused... read more →

Jun 01

Avoiding discomfort: the “comfort trap”

Think for a moment about the last time you felt a uncomfortable. Not the physical kind, but the psychological kind. What kind of discomfort was it? Was it embarrassment at something you’d said or done in front of others? Was it anxiety about a meeting you were due to have.... read more →

Apr 05

‘Coach on Campus’: workplace coaching for everyone else

Late 2018 saw us introduce our new coaching proposition, which we call ‘Coach on Campus’. We developed it in response to the commonly held belief that coaching is only for senior leaders. And while many leaders can and do benefit from coaching, it should not be the preserve of the... read more →

Apr 04

Talking Productivity in Dublin

I'm delighted to speaking at an event hosted by the Psychological Society of Ireland next month. I'll be walking delegates through my 'Pillars of Productivity', a principles-led approach to improving personal productivity. We've been covering these principles on 'My Pocket Psych' in recent months, so anyone who's been listening will... read more →

Mar 06

The machine that goes ‘Ping!’

Does anyone else remember the scene in Monty Python’s ‘The Meaning of Life’, when the hospital administrator admires the new ‘Machine that goes Ping!’ in the operating theatre? A couple of recent, accidental activations of my desktop Amazon Echo in the office (thanks, Alexa) got me thinking about all the... read more →

Feb 28

Sometimes it’s the simple things…

A delegate on a recent coaching skills course I ran expressed some surprise that productivity might come up as a coaching topic. We had started talking about ‘time management’, but quickly broadened the discussion to a more inclusive productivity theme. The inference was that if someone couldn’t manage their time,... read more →

Feb 13

Productivity Porn: A distraction in plain sight

I think it’s fair to say I never thought I’d be writing about ‘porn’ on this blog. But the phrase ‘productivity porn’ encapsulates a problem so well, I don’t think it can be avoided. There’s a certain kind of client I come across from time to time, whose knowledge of... read more →

Jan 24

Seeing beyond the social media ‘problem’

Last week, I was quoted in an FT article about social media use at work. I sometimes brace myself to see how my interviews are portrayed 'in print', but this time I was pleased with the overall tone of the article. For me, there were a few key points in... read more →