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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
19 May 2018 - 19:36

null Who will make it in management 

It’s difficult to predict who will make a good manager. Past performance in your chosen profession is no guide. Who would have thought that the strident, bolshie young social worker, the bane of management as a trade union rep would go on to be a director  and then a chief executive. Everyone seemed to think the outstanding practitioner would make an excellent manager but their first... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
17 May 2018 - 15:10

null The Management Delusion 

Every baffled new senior manager goes searching for answers in management/leadership books- but what these authors / management gurus really offer is the reassuring fantasy that there is a formula for success. When I took up my first senior management post I was under no illusion that I knew what I was doing. My progress up to this point has been based on my skill and experience as a... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
12 May 2018 - 16:10

null This is how we do things here

Every manager has a philosophy. The best are able to transmit this philosophy so that everyone buys into a particularly way of doing things.  When the philosophy delivers no one questions it but the point about a philosophy is that a manager sticks to this way of doing things even when it appears not to be working.    If you chop and change your philosophy to follow the... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
09 May 2018 - 10:07

null So who cares how they do it in the US 

Whenever I read management articles about US companies it is clear to me that the way they do things over there is different. Which is a bit of a problem because management  gurus  and business schools encourage us to follow the US example. They love their sports metaphors, and from my perspective they are overly enthusiastic, toe curlingly optimistic and they make excessive use of... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
04 May 2018 - 11:11

null “Managers take too much credit when things go well and too much blame when they don’t.“ Brian Clough. 

  The best place to read about leadership and management is not the business section but the sports pages. If you want to understand about performance, if you want to see how big data can be used, if you want to know what motivates teams, if you want see how an expert manages a hostile  media and a critical  public, if you want insights into the relationship between a manager... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
01 May 2018 - 10:25

null I’d be a foolish manager if I didn’t listen to my team

Things are not going well. Moral is at rock bottom. Performance against a number of key indicators has drawn criticism from all quarters. We are at the wrong end of the league table and our prospects for improvement are described as, “poor”. Some are questioning the strategy I put in place, others complain of budget pressures and cuts that have limited our options. There is a view that we... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
29 Apr 2018 - 20:00

null How can you improve a side whilst selling your best player 

Improving services whilst cutting the budget. It’s seems counterintuitive. It’s the equivalent of improving the team by selling your best players. Generally speaking people including managers see a direct relationship between spending and success.  In contrast the government, or their inspectors and auditors, have continued to maintain there is no direct correlation between what a local... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
19 Apr 2018 - 09:57

null Alert

The pilot of jet2 fight from Manchester to Las Palmas  (Gran Canaria) makes a joke to the co pilot and then wipes his hands on his trousers. He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes around the controls he has just been using for take off. “Are these new cleaners  over doing it with the Mr Sheen every thing I touch seems sticky.” Just then one of the cabin crew enters the... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
17 Apr 2018 - 13:53

null Managers Behaving Badly 

    Why do people behave badly in management team meetings? The same manager who is charming and agreeable to partner agencies is abrasive , argumentative and opinionated to colleagues in team meetings.    In business you don’t go around having massive confrontations. You try and find the things you agree on rather than what you disagree on. The common ground. So your... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
12 Apr 2018 - 20:13

null Big data and Water Carriers 

  In business it’s all about the numbers. Analysing the huge amount of data businesses are now able to collect is being used to provide fresh insights into performance. But an obsession with the numbers might lead managers to miss something that the more experience  manager might previously have picked up on through intuition.  In football and other team sports we have seen the... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
10 Apr 2018 - 21:01

null What makes a successful multidisciplinary team

  Talent and dedication are not enough. Team work and leadership are essential but recent management research suggests successful teams have something else. Drawing from the example of sport they suggest that winning teams have a Catalyst within.    Every successful team has a catalyst, some one who makes things happen, who brings out the best in those around them and exerts... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
09 Apr 2018 - 08:18

null To the mananager who says I don’t need to explain

To the manager who says I don’t need to explain my decisions . I say you do. When things don’t work out, targets are missed and decisions are questioned the manager needs to respond. Simply saying it’s my job to make the decisions and I take full responsibility is not enough.  Managers need to communicate their thinking not just their decisions. The team is more likely to accept the need... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
07 Apr 2018 - 11:54

null In Praise of Older Managers 

I thought if I hadn’t made it by the time I was 50 then I wasn’t going to make it. The thrusting, ambitious and going places 40 somethings seemed to dominate the top posts. Even words like “ambitious “, “ enthusiastic” and “ energetic”  seemed to be code for young and when combined with “experience” meant the interview panel was seeking to appoint a forty year old, high flyer from the fast... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
05 Apr 2018 - 13:56

null Confrontational Leadership 

Managers don’t have favourites. Managers don’t castigate individual team members in public. Managers don’t pointedly slight an individual in front of their colleagues. According to received wisdom managers should praise in public and criticise  in private. Those who don’t follow this rule are considered either poor people managers or a bully. And yet there are some well known highly... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
29 Mar 2018 - 15:54

null Rewarding self promotion over talent 

Does your organisation recognise and reward talent or does it just think it does? Does it in reality reward self promotion over talent?  In many organisations those who climb the career ladder faster and who get paid more are not the most talented. Talent goes unrecognised and unrewarded unless the talented, or someone on their behalf ,broadcast their achievements . Most organisations... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
05 Apr 2018 - 06:50

null Clever people find ways to cheat 

Perhaps I should rephrase that to cleaver people find ways round the system. I have always been sceptical about the usefulness of IQ in recruitment. Measuring an individual's ability to spot patterns and predict the next in the sequence identifies those who are better at it but doesn't offer a reliable indicator of future effectiveness as a manager. However this does not mean I wasn't curious... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
25 Mar 2018 - 15:05

null How to impress the Boss

  You creep. Not as easy as you think if you don’t want to alienate your colleagues and lose all self respect. It’s not about agreeing with his or her every word, it’s not about volunteering when everyone else is looking at their shoes, it not about showing off as in sharing your knowledge of a new business theory from a book you recently read. It might be owning up to a mistake, a... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
22 Mar 2018 - 14:29

null Why high flyers are more likely to crash and burn

  Organisations look to appoint talented and experienced individuals and rarely look at their track record for evidence of resilience. Resilience is the ability to cope with  set backs, disappointments and failures. High flyers are used to always doing well which means they are ill prepared for when things go wrong. High performers gain quicker promotions and move from job to job... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
22 Mar 2018 - 12:37

null It’s just an illusion

  We arrived late. The only seats left were on the front row. The man on the stage stopped what he was saying and welcomed us pointing to the empty seats at the front. The spot light was literally on us. As my partner quickly sat down I was invited on stage. Apparently we had arrived just as volunteers were being sort. Encouraged by the audience and my wife the man on stage insisted I... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
14 Mar 2018 - 13:13

null This Epidemic of Bullying 

The current epidemic of bulling is evidence of the frequency with which people get into positions of power without acquiring the skills to manage people. It is very worrying that that people can be appointed to senior management posts with out the necessary people management skills. It says much about the recruitment to top posts that either people management skills are assumed or simply not... See more
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