Working At A Stand-Up Desk Will Get Your Better and Faster Results
20 May 2014As I walked around the offices of one of my long-standing legal clients a few weeks ago I noticed some of the senior associates and partners had stand-up desks for a portion of their work, including computer work in some cases. Then last week, when I interviewed my friend and professional organiser Mary Pankiewicz of […]
How do we learn to not sweat the small stuff?
14 May 2014Some people know it naturally, some never get it, and the rest of us have the best teachers in the world – small children! I spent the first week of our recent school holidays around a lot of small children and their parents, with a brilliant opportunity to observe in a real world ‘laboratory’. Although […]
Teach Good Habits Young and We Grow Self-Sufficient Adults
14 April 2014Last weekend I had the joy of looking after 3 grandsons whilst their parents were off at an agricultural conference. On Saturday morning I was chatting to a mother on the side line of 7 year old Matt’s first rugby game for the season. ‘My son struggles to keep up,’ she said, pointing to the […]
Why kids need to be resilience proofed
9 September 2013Over-protected children grow up to be weak adults I was enjoying a meal recently with a small group when (not surprisingly) the conversation turned to the current economic climate. The party included my oldest son, a Lt Colonel recently back from a two-year stint at Puckapunyal, Victoria and currently working on some very high-level New […]
What my daughter learnt about Mandela's leadership style
17 July 2013As I write this article, Mandela is on life-support. Maybe he will have passed on by the time you read it. However, his generosity of spirit has influenced, and will profoundly influence, for many generations. In his honour I’d like to share a story. It was a hot Monday afternoon in June 2007. Gazing up […]
How To Save Money While Training The Kids!
24 April 2013It was a sunny Monday morning, May 1998. Kate and I were planning our next client newsletter. She was one of my two part-time assistants and the one who assisted with marketing activities. She turned to me and said: ‘Robyn, you’re wasting money with our newsletter.’ I looked at her in alarm. After all, everyone […]
Who To Delegate To, Even When You’ve Got No-One
4 April 2013The comments to my last article about delegation hit the nail very firmly on the head. One reader said: ‘The biggest problem with this scenario is that before you can delegate you need to have someone to delegate to.’ And this was answered very well by: ‘The step to employing someone is the hardest step […]
To improve – inspect: the four keys to great delegation
21 March 2013Even in small businesses, great delegation is a vital skill for any business person who wants to expand or increase turnover. However, the problem is, very few have formal training in it. Many folk lurch along, doing their best, often overwhelmed by their own work as well as the needs of their people, trying not […]
Two Common Delegation Mistakes and How to Fix Them
11 February 2013Delegation or the lack of it can make or break not only a farming business, but any business. As I work with both large and small companies in a very wide range of industries around the world, I constantly hear that many owners and managers struggle with delegation. I’ve noticed two major mistakes made by […]
Stacey’s simple stress-reducer
18 September 2012I’ve been working with Stacey* for a couple of months as her productivity coach. She’s the GM of a successful company in the engineering field. She used to be a big list maker. Often she’d have five pages of items ‘to do’ – but hardly anything got done and the lists just got longer. Result? […]