5 Keys Ways to Accelerate your business growth
With only four in ten small businesses surviving more than five years, it’s important for business owners to focus on continuous profitable growth. If you’re surviving the strain and running well, but you want to take it to the next level, this article is for you. Truly Understand your Customers’ Needs Ask yourself critically, do you really understand what each of your customers wants from you? You should continually consider your customer needs as it can be [...]
What’s the difference between traditional learning and experiential learning?
Benjamin Franklin once said: ‘Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn’ Experiential learning is different to traditional learning because its purpose is to get people involved and challenge their thinking. How do you like to learn? What makes you remember things? Is it sitting and listening? Is it watching or reading? Is it taking notes? Or do you learn and remember best of all when you’re actively involved in [...]
Scenario planning – Hoping for the best BUT preparing for the worst
The only certain thing about the future is uncertainty, so how do we prepare and plan our business effectively in these uncertain times? In this week’s post I’ve explored scenario planning as a way to help you imagine and prepare for the worst and to make sure your business stays viable if times get tough. Why worry about something that hasn’t happened yet? Professor Ewan Gillon, writing for the Press and Journal, highlighted that as humans we’re [...]
Ways to unlock business creativity
Creativity drives growth - there’s no doubt about this. McKinsey reports that creative leaders outperform their peers on all financial metrics. An astounding 67 percent of creative leaders achieve above-average revenue growth. But we’re all so stretched for time, and creativity seems to keep getting pushed to the bottom of our to-do lists. Finding time for creativity to develop new ideas can be difficult, but here are some ideas that can help you start being more creative [...]
Are you listening? One crucial skill to improve business performance
Smart home devices saw record sales over Christmas, according to Business Insider. Amazon's Alexa took the lead in these sales and this technology is taking the world by storm using one key skill – listening. Listening is becoming a lost art in the human world, according to Forbes. In our high-tech, fast-moving world, our attention spans are at an all-time low of eight seconds. Our brains produce up to 50,000 thoughts a day, so we need to [...]
Where’s my crystal ball? Business planning in an uncertain landscape
Yesterday the Business Desk reported that businesses had held off making decisions in 2018 due to uncertainty, businesses are stockpiling ahead of Brexit, and Jaguar Land Rover announced 5,000 UK job cuts. Airbus’ Chief Executive Toms Enders has openly described the uncertainty of Brexit as unbearable, and large organisations such as NHS trusts are struggling to plan in the midst of such uncertainty. So how can we plan effectively in such an uncertain climate? Of course, we [...]
Where to focus your business efforts in 2019
Happy new year from all of us at Catalyst Coaching and Mentoring. It’s that time of year again when we’re looking at the twelve months ahead and determining how we can make this year THE YEAR. Have you set your priorities yet? If not, to help you and give your thinking a boost, we’ve rounded up some New Year advice from top business experts. Bring in the new but keep hold of the old Gregg Schwartz, writing [...]
What makes employees feel valued? Our three top tips for showing your appreciation
What makes employees feel valued? Here are our three top tips for showing your appreciation this Christmas ... What makes employees feel valued? Our three top tips for showing your appreciation.
How to be a more authentic leader
Would you like to be a more authentic leader? Here are our top tips based on some interesting insight. Let me know what you think .... How to be a more authentic leader
What can Tyson Fury teach us about business resilience?
Tyson Fury being denied his historical comeback by judges got us thinking here at Catalyst – we didn’t see his results as a failure, but as an excellent show of resilience and personal strength. As a boxer, I’ve learned so much from his recent fight, but as a business coach and mentor I’ve identified a great deal in Fury’s approach that we can learn from in business. Business Resilience Although disappointed with the judges’ result, Fury [...]
How Group Facilitation Radically Improves Team Performance
A few weeks ago we focused on executive coaching and mentoring, and this week we’re expanding on that theme to discuss the power of group facilitation. An experienced facilitator will help you and your management group to grow and develop, by helping them to further explore and better understand issues that are standing in their way and also identify ways to overcome these. We distinguish group facilitation from team coaching. Group facilitation is focused on working with [...]
How does a ‘good leader’ become a ‘great leader’?
At Catalyst we believe that every role within an organisation has a part to play in its overall success. Many organisations can boast good leaders but this week we are looking at how a good leader can become a great leader, who and what business leaders and CEO’s turn to for support and to help them improve their personal performance and the overall performance of their business. It’s lonely at the top Leadership in Business A [...]
4-step Guide to Creating more Dynamic Teams
As business leaders, we’re often tasked with the role of improving team dynamics and efficiency. When dynamics are strong, a team works well together. When dynamics are poor, the team's effectiveness reduces. Achieving optimum team efficiency is not always simple to do, so you may need a little support to make those all-important improvements. If this is the case for you, then this 4 step guide will help. Creating more Dynamic Teams Goal-setting By committing [...]
Break Free and Rediscover Your Entrepreneurial Spirit
This week we’re looking at how to break free of the norm and rediscover your entrepreneurial spirit. We’ve found that executives who adopt a more entrepreneurial mindset through coaching and mentoring come up with more innovative ideas and understand how to apply them in their own organisations. Business leaders should use entrepreneurial thinking to generate new ideas and develop ways to grow their business. This approach can give you an edge, help you penetrate markets faster and [...]
Why use a mentor?
Business leaders and managers sometimes ask ‘what is the value of a mentor?’ We thought we would tackle this question and explain not only what mentoring is but also how it can transform performance. Business Mentoring London What is mentoring? The word Mentor originated as the name of a character in Homer’s Odyssey and is now used more generally to refer to a trusted advisor, friend, teacher and wise person. To help distinguish between mentoring [...]
Five Great Leadership Values
As it’s World Values Day this week, we took a closer look at leadership values. We’re helping our clients use values-based coaching and mentoring to transition their leadership from good to great.
Traits of a Good Manager
What makes a good manager? This week at Catalyst we’ve been unpicking the theme of management, discussing what makes a good manager and thinking about the common traits of some of the best managers we’ve had the pleasure of coaching and mentoring. Here’s what we found. Top Traits of a Good Manager Management text books and self-help guides regularly quote the common denominators of communication skills, the ability to make decisions and being able to [...]