The question is

Who is responsible for developing you so that your career progresses?

It used to be something that employers took responsible for; however, that may not be the case anymore.

In this podcast, Paul and Ricky explore the way that career development changes over your career and how modern careers may have to have quite different expectations around learning and development.

So, ask yourself, who owns developing your career? Is it you, or is it your boss?

So what are the important things that leaders need to focus on to ensure that they are leading for success? Does that change in a year like 2023, when, yet again, everything is up in the air?

In this podcast Paul and Ricky consider what would be the five most important areas that a leader should focus on when leading in such uncertain in times. They consider how this might be different from other years (hint, it isn't, it is just that this level of uncertainty is much less forgiving than normal), and offer some practical tips on where you can start.

In this special edition, one-hundredth episode of the podcast we explore the four key topics, Productivity, Change, Culture and Leadership to see if we can get each of them down to one piece of wisdom, well one piece each from Ricky, Rob, Rich and Paul.

Without creating any spoilers, you may have guessed that we did not get it down to one, or one per topic! However, we did come up with some real nuggets for each of the areas, so listen in for a quick grounding in how to get things done in your organisation, department or team.

Every day in every workplace there are important conversations that just don't happen. Conversations around performance, disagreements around strategy, information that may stop a mistake about to happen. Important and beneficial conversations that don't happen.

These are difficult conversations. An exchange that may go wrong, get emotional or have future consequences. In that moment, the cost of having the conversation seems so much bigger than the cost of not having the conversation in our heads. We stay quiet, it is the safest approach. Yet, in the long term, we end up dealing with the consequences of the things left unsaid.

In this episode, Ricky and Paul discuss why we all do this and explore some techniques to make these conversations just a little easier.

In the last of our short series of podcasts on questions, Rob and Ricky tackle the role of questions in critical thinking. From exploring the advantages or disadvantages of different options to making decisions, asking the right questions allows us to cut through and get the best answers.

Great outcomes start with great questions.

Another short podcast in our mini-series on questions, this time Rob and Ricky look at the role of questions in making us think creatively.

Questions have the magical property of making you think, even when you don't want to, so with small shifts in the structure of the question, you can use questions to make anyone think more creatively.

Continuing our short series on the power of questions, in this podcast, Rob and Ricky explore the role of questions in creating clarity.

Questions are one of the easiest ways of engaging our minds. In fact, they are sneaky, as it is almost impossible not to think about a question when asked, even if you don't want to answer it. Questions can help us sort through the noise to discover exactly what we want, when we want it, and how we will know when we get there.

As part of a mini-series on the power of questions, Ricky and Rob look at the role of questions, why they are an important tool for leaders and managers and discuss why they work.

From the way we ask questions, to using questions to helping others think, this podcasts asks questions about questions.

So, you have spent hours working out how best to run your meeting or workshop, you have a plan, you have the timing perfect... then the workshop starts, and you watch as your plan gets up and leaves the building!

In this podcast, Paul gets experienced facilitators Richard and Rob to share some of their secrets so that you look like everything is running to plan; you end up exactly where you said you would end up, even if you don't quite know how you got there.

Often to get to the heart of a problem or strategy, you need to create an honest and open exchange of views, yet you don't want it to tip over into an argument or the participants becoming overly emotional.

In this podcast, Paul explores this with experienced facilitators Richard and Rob to find out how they find the balance, getting everything on the table, even surfacing controversial opinions, while ensuring the group works together and continues to support each other.