5 radical but much needed changes to the current performance review process
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5 radical but much needed changes to the current performance review process

The world of performance management is changing. The latest thinking suggests that we shouldn’t have one (or 2) big performance reviews with our team every year, but an on-going conversation about performance all throughout the year. This is a change I completely agree with. The amount of time taken up with meaningless appraisals which go…

How to identify when you need to work ‘smarter’ and when this isn’t going to help you get more productive
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How to identify when you need to work ‘smarter’ and when this isn’t going to help you get more productive

I was having a conversation recently with a client who had been newly promoted to director in his Big 4 firm. The conversation inspired this article as we were looking at how he utilised his time. He thought he needed to work smarter in order to work harder. However, it wasn’t simply a case of…

5 ways to turn a weak team into a strong team
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5 ways to turn a weak team into a strong team

Every firm has some parts that work well and some that don’t.  If you have realised that your team is struggling and not doing as well as you’d like, you are probably wondering how you can work with them to get them performing better. Improving team performance is a great idea and one that will…

The 5 roles a successful team leader must play
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The 5 roles a successful team leader must play

Making partner is more than just proving you can win work. You also need to prove that you can build and develop a team. As a ‘team leader’ you will be playing multiple different roles. In this article, based on an extract from my book, Poised for Partnership, we look at the 5 different roles…

How to construct a speech which inspires a team to improve its performance
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How to construct a speech which inspires a team to improve its performance

Motivating your team, particularly when the going is tough, is hard work. In this extract from an interview with Errol Williamson in Spring 2015, I talk about how to get your team onside and motivate them to higher levels of performance. EW:     In your book ‘How to Make Partner and Still Have a Life’, Part…

Inheriting a new team – how to decide which team members to keep?
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Inheriting a new team – how to decide which team members to keep?

When you get made up to partner, either through a promotion or a lateral move, it is not uncommon to inherit a new team, or a dysfunctional group of people who happen – more because of a HR structure chart – to belong to the same team. Your long term success as partner is driven…

7 no-nonsense but effective ways to tell a team member that they are not performing
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7 no-nonsense but effective ways to tell a team member that they are not performing

One common conversation I have with my clients is how to get the message through to a poor performer in the team. Whilst the intention is always there to have a difficult conversation, very often this intention is not acted on. After all, there are always more pressing client matters to attend to than having…

Most popular (and effective) tactics to fix a struggling team
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Most popular (and effective) tactics to fix a struggling team

What happens if you inherit a struggling team? After all, the professions are full of dysfunctional teams and non-team players. In this article, we discuss how to fix the struggling team, once and for all. How to fix the team. Reflect on anything team members have already told you that they’re unhappy about. In this list…

How to keep your team happy when they are stressed out with tough deadlines
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How to keep your team happy when they are stressed out with tough deadlines

No-one said that being in the professions would be easy! However, when you get to manager in a practice you get given the equivalent of a ‘hospital pass’. On the one hand you need to keep your clients and partner happy. Then you also need to keep your team happy and motivated, often by asking…

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