Springboard

As a freelance trainer for the Springboard Women’s Development Programme, I am a passionate supporter of the positive impact that it has had on so many women across the globe. I first discovered the Programme whilst a Senior Police Officer, when looking for positive action initiatives to help increase the numbers of women in senior positions. In the early 00’s, I realised that there were a lot of very talented women in both Police Officer and Support Staff roles in our Force, but they were just not putting themselves forward for promotion or moving into specialist departments. Subsequent introduction of [...]

Last week I suggested some tips that might be helpful if you are planning to set yourself personal or professional goals for 2019. One of the ‘tricks’ that I use to help with achieving my goals is to set myself 30 day challenges. I was originally inspired by Jason Zook’s challenge (click the link to read his article). He talks about profound changes he has made in his life in just 30 days. Research suggests that it can take anything from 21 to 66 days to successfully create a new habit, but the most relevant length of time for each of [...]

You will note that I haven’t used the word resolution in the title of this blog. I’m not actually a fan of setting next year’s goals on or around New Year’s Eve, the traditional time for planning how we are going to make our lives so much better. This is mainly because by 11.30pm on 31st December I am probably heading towards the end of my second bottle of Prosecco! Any internet search will bring up millions of articles about New Year’s resolutions, but most of them will focus on the reasons why so many fail at the first hurdle. In [...]

It’s the pantomime season – oh yes it is! That peculiarly British tradition in which everyone looks grotesque, no one is quite what they seem, the audience works as hard as the cast and bad jokes abound. I LOVE it, and this year I’m thoroughly enjoying being in our local production of Puss in Boots. My character is a baddy which is particularly fun; lots of sneering at the audience – very different to running a Springboard programme, I promise you! Thinking what to write about today I keep coming back to the pantomime and wondering whether there’s some interesting [...]

In case you hadn’t noticed, Christmas is thundering into view at some pace! Whether you celebrate it or not, Christmas has a habit of generating plenty of extra activity, be that fun stuff like mince pies with the neighbours, or less lovely concerns around trying to juggle the budget. I was talking to a friend about this the other day. She has two school-age children who are full-on with plays, discos, trips to the pantomime, Cub Scout parties, carol concerts and everything else. She also has a full-time job, pets and an elderly parent to care for. Oh yes, she [...]

I don’t believe in “personality clashes” – at least not in the sense of “Oh, they’ll just never get on – it’s a personality clash”.  When I hear that phrase uttered at work, it seems to me to be a way of explaining why the two people concerned have not been ‘encouraged’ by their manager to learn how to get along with each other.  A justification for avoidance.  A justification for not dealing with the behaviour and leaving the people involved (and around them) to work within the hostility. Of course, there are people we don’t get on with and [...]