tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79475887885693103222024-10-02T06:19:25.169+01:00Learning is about actions not intentionsFirstNexushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05898361471981663256noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-81194524401641728022010-12-23T11:27:00.000+00:002010-12-23T11:28:16.267+00:00

We've moved!For all the latest news and views head on over to Prospero's World. Remember to update your bookmarks.

FirstNexushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05898361471981663256noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-33822260221218960952010-12-02T12:39:00.003+00:002010-12-02T12:45:18.630+00:00

Last month we introduced Career Segmentation. Click here for the full article or see the summary chart below. This month we look at how the model can be applied, both by individuals and organisations.IndividualsThe critical thing for individuals to manage is the two very strong career rhythms that run simultaneously. The first is what we call ‘The Price To Pay’. We all understand that to succeed

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-16747505229156650242010-12-02T11:59:00.003+00:002010-12-02T12:39:06.678+00:00

Followers come in all shapes and sizes – whether they’re followers of an individual, a team, a brand or a belief – by definition, they are the loyal supporters. There has been a great deal of research into the nature of Leadership but its contingent aspect, that of Followership, has been far less well served. Not withstanding the seminal work done by Kelley et al there are still some very

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-5934284876284209532010-12-02T11:58:00.000+00:002010-12-02T11:59:42.372+00:00

Right now businesses are wisely looking at controlling costs and creating more efficient ways of doing business. Yet that’s only half the story of remaining successful in straitened times. Businesses need to get out there and sell their products and services. Yet when the market is tough salespeople can lose confidence, and in doing so focus on the wrong things, turning customers away or

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-53827554266775374192010-11-04T15:13:00.007+00:002010-11-04T15:39:52.718+00:00

Marketers are familiar with life stage segmentation in trying to understand buying motivations and decisions. For some time we have been interested in how the same technique might be applied to looking at career phases. Below we have developed our own tool that we believe identifies the key phases of the career focused working life:These age ranges are not exact, for some they happen slightly

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-67058670180615996512010-11-04T15:09:00.001+00:002010-11-04T15:11:56.997+00:00

If you are planning to go into a sales role for the first time there are a number of key things you should be clear about before taking the plunge. Or if you are the one who is recruiting new sales people then it’s doubly important that you have taken the right steps to identify these areas of knowledge and skills and that you can support your new sales person to make the grade.We list our top

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-41182602808617124302010-11-04T15:06:00.000+00:002010-11-04T15:09:20.802+00:00

What if you know your people desperately need some development in a key area of their role, and supposing you even had the budget to pay for it, can you really afford to let them out of the office long enough for it to happen?It seems that even during these cash-strapped times, often the biggest obstacle to getting people trained up is the impact that their absence has on the day-to-day

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-7714727761434434842010-10-07T13:36:00.004+01:002010-10-07T14:16:17.139+01:00

Think about your most important customers; think about the ones you enjoy working most with. Think about why you enjoy working with them – they're nice people, you make good money from them, they pay up on time, they are low maintenance, they’re compliant. Sound familiar?All the above reasons are perfectly valid in terms of why you might like working with particular key customers, but the most

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-13592047524309362372010-10-07T13:31:00.002+01:002010-10-07T13:36:39.456+01:00

Are role-plays still a valid part of the learning process?The dreaded role-play! When most people find out that they’re required to do a role-play as part of a training course they groan ‘oh no, do we have to?’ especially when it’s in front of their peers. Most would willingly trade the role-play for a five thousand word essay which is arguably more arduous and less beneficial. Why does the

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-62818048326937762082010-10-07T13:22:00.003+01:002010-10-07T14:07:09.156+01:00

Sales teams are under pressure to deliver strong results in a patchy economy. At times like this every customer contact counts, and every opportunity needs to be capitalised upon. Internal sales teams, sales support teams and customer service teams can make a real difference to the sales effort.With some additional skills, techniques and confidence internal teams can make a major contribution,

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-57791260514080650622010-09-02T12:40:00.002+01:002010-09-02T12:44:52.513+01:00

With Tony Blair’s book just published there has been renewed focus on what kind of leader he was. We thought it was timely to allow you to judge Blair as a leader against our 4SL™ model of leadership. Have a read through the overview of the four dimensions below and make your own judgement.4SL™ examines 16 success input drivers grouped under the four headings of:'Point of View', 'Drive', '

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-36964668996868830782010-09-02T12:35:00.004+01:002010-09-02T12:40:32.809+01:00

Which is most important for sales people today; is it What you know – or Who you know? Knowledge = Power has always been a critical maxim in the world of selling; but in which direction should sales people invest their efforts and energy towards more effective knowledge acquisition? We use the ‘Networking Compass’ to ensure sales people build and maintain an appropriately balanced network to

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-18665680527926952512010-09-02T12:32:00.000+01:002010-09-02T12:35:23.354+01:00

Take a minute to consider how many of the following pain points relate to your management population:Managers are promoted on their technical rather than managerial abilitySome managers become irrelevant with people working around rather than through themSome are great people managers, some really deliver results, but few managers actually do both, consistentlyThe management team offers very

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-75405489555143849162010-08-05T15:59:00.000+01:002010-08-05T16:00:17.287+01:00

Below we’ve pulled together some Tweets of ours that have either made us think, opened our eyes/ears, or just made us smile. We hope you find them as enjoyable.If you would like to follow us on twitter it’s dead easy to do, just click here.Thought provoking lecture on one possible internet futureWhat kind of writer are you? Austin or Collins Proust or ArcherProvoking (for the West) piece by Andy

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-37830556731340996002010-08-05T15:56:00.001+01:002010-08-05T15:59:04.864+01:00

Managers today face more complex challenges than at any time in the past. With downsizing and de-layering there’s no room for passengers and the pressure comes from all angles. There’s plenty of literature out there on how to be a great manager, and TV programmes give us all kinds of perspectives on what it takes to succeed in business, from May Queen of Shops through Dragon’s Den to The

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-77620067642421713582010-08-05T15:52:00.001+01:002010-08-05T15:56:49.274+01:00

With the amount of change and restructuring happening currently; it seems to us that a large number of projects are being set up – to fail. Driven by the need to cut costs, work more efficiently or cope with increasingly more demanding workloads – well-intentioned projects are often not delivering the goods. From our recent work we have seen a number of reasons why this is happening: poor

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-89849905852155378882010-07-08T13:33:00.006+01:002010-07-08T14:05:46.218+01:00

Did you see the Wimbledon mens final on Sunday? Raffa Nadal won in straight sets - 6-3, 7-5, 6-4. Imagine not seeing the game and just having the result, how insightful could you be about how he won?For many sales managers, that is exactly the position they are in. They have the sales results or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), but don’t have any meaningful or accurate Critical Success Factor (

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-69357746808869939652010-07-08T13:28:00.002+01:002010-07-08T13:33:14.828+01:00

If you are recruiting you will need to think about inducting/onboarding your highly motivated, keen to learn, potential sales stars of the future. However, within three months your new recruits will have become institutionalised, demonstrating the standard distribution of performance - 20% doing really well, 20% doing really badly and 60% contributing to the existing average by being, well,

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-60425614253316663002010-07-08T13:20:00.003+01:002010-07-08T13:28:16.164+01:00

We’re seeing an increasing demand from sales leaders to develop their sales teams into value adding Key Account Managers. It’s a logical step, but for many salespeople it’s a big one which requires a better understanding of how customers buy and how their competitors sell as well as an increase in their account management skills.Given the market pressures and demands exerted on customers by:Their

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-73169861536844494082010-06-02T16:24:00.000+01:002010-06-02T16:26:05.427+01:00

One of the things that makes “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate” a great line in film history is that it’s so often relevant to the situations we find ourselves in, both in everyday work and home situations. Seemingly simple situations from each party’s perspective become difficult areas of conflict, either overt or hidden, because of a failure to communicate.Good negotiation

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-44783964707230180492010-06-02T16:22:00.001+01:002010-06-02T16:24:41.053+01:00

A newly appointed manager, when asked how he was getting on in his new role replied “I get called ‘one of them’ now so I must be doing something right!” Previously an experienced team-member, he had been well respected by his peers and was the obvious choice for promotion. Unfortunately things went down-hill from then on. He lost the respect of his team, performance dropped, the number of

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-79929616435609925852010-06-02T16:18:00.001+01:002010-06-02T16:21:46.364+01:00

What is your approach to people development, learning focused or narrowly training focused? We’ve developed a table to help you decide:Click here to view the table.Much of work is with what we term the hybrid organisation. They have a desire to move to the learning focused model and their general direction of travel supports that, but they still have legacy issues and cultural norms that are

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-91500514095873647652010-05-06T14:27:00.001+01:002010-05-06T14:29:59.347+01:00

If you’re reading this whilst out of work or you know someone (especially a young person) who is looking for work please pass it on. In our outplacement work we have found these to be significant drivers in peoples’ success rate when attending the job interview*.Use These Phrases At The Appropriate TimeI am very aware of what your organisation does.Make sure you can back this up. Talk

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-52929775092342377802010-05-06T14:24:00.001+01:002010-05-06T14:27:11.555+01:00

Charles Handy rather famously suggested that nearly all organisations are made up to some extent of both mercenaries and stakeholders. If this sounds a little over-simplistic it still helps us to look at how this split affects employee engagement in organisations across the spectrum from global businesses to local family firms and from national public sector bodies to small not-for-profit

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7947588788569310322.post-6364627236524087102010-05-06T14:21:00.001+01:002010-05-06T14:24:27.096+01:00

As we write this newsletter a hung parliament looks to be the most likely outcome of the UK General Election. For a country unused to coalition government there will likely be a lot of negotiation going on in the background to ensure favoured policies get on to the agenda.Meanwhile out in the workplace negotiation is a key part of the salesperson’s toolbox. Many people feel that they can sell

Prospero Barnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05927704500691294311noreply@blogger.com0