Articles

Psychological issues are now the key factors affecting people's health in the modern workforce as incidences of stress, anxiety and depression increase. This means that it is more crucial than ever for organisations to be addressing wellbeing strategically and minimising both the costs to the business and the damage to employees/teams. Organisations often struggle with wellbeing and tend to adopt a 'pick and mix' approach where they offer a range of offers, such as reduced cost gym memberships, ...
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    So, you’ve just come out of a job interview and you’re feeling pretty positive and upbeat. You spent hours preparing – thinking of suitable examples of when you’ve been a brilliant team-player, gone above and beyond what was asked of you, demonstrated your flexible attitude and a short list of all your supposed weaknesses. You’ve got references from previous employers, polished your shoes and perfected the firm, non-sweaty handshake. Then – nothing. Not a call, not ...
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Life in the 21st century is pretty full on and we all experience pressure from a range of sources e.g. from our work lives, from our home lives and from our own expectations and aspirations.  When the level of pressure exceeds our ability to cope, however, we become stressed and it has a negative impact on our physical and mental health and ultimately on our performance. The impact of these symptoms can be damaging enough for the average working environment but for safety critical environmen...
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I was recently at a client’s premises to help them with the implementation of their wellbeing strategy..  I got talking to Laura (a manager) about managing mental health. She told me a story about a staff member called Phil, that she inherited from another manager. Phil had a mental health condition, which the previous manager was aware of and had subsequently allowed Phil to come into work at his discretion. In addition, he did not worry or say anything, if Phil did not complete his work or...
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The issue of risk in project management is a crucial one but little account is taken of the unique contribution that people’s individual differences play in the management of risk. Research carried out to date has demonstrated that individual personality plays a part in the extent to which we are risk takers or risk averse. See Sharon’s article here to find out more: Personality & Risk
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Many projects encounter difficult project relationships but techniques from positive psychology offer a new way of designing and delivering projects in a way that facilitates positive emotions and good relationships. Positive Psychology provides some well researched, evidenced based techniques that you can use to increase the chances of your project being successful. According to Seligman, Positive Psychology has three central concerns: Positive Emotions, Positive Individual Traits, and P...
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Working with difficult stakeholders increases the stress levels of the project manager and the project team. It can also create more work, in having to chase up difficult stakeholders and invest time in trying to encourage them to contribute their element of the project plan. These consequences are bad enough but it can get much worse than this. A couple of years ago, I was contacted by a global construction company who were working in partnership with a local authority to deliver a PFI (Private...
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