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Steve Jobs’ recent death has brought up a huge amount of discussion. His innovation for great products and financial success at Apple has deemed him a genius – giving him a Godlike status. It is without question that from 1997 onward, Jobs saved Apple from failure and has revolutionised the computing industry while making a lot of money in the process.
However, he did this with a very unorthodox management style. In fact he flew in the face of the management technique of other Silicon Valley companies.
While Google and Microsoft promote openness and strive to make their employees happy, Apple is incredibly secretive and most employees lived in fear of Jobs: but it worked. So how did Steve Jobs achieve such success while ignoring all traditional notions of business management? Read the rest of "Management the Steve Jobs way – learning from Steve Jobs’ management style"
Posted by Craig Charley in Human Resources, Management & Leadership, News on October 17th, 2011| 3 Comments »
Did you watch Rupert and James Murdoch giving evidence to the Select Committee last week?
I did; I found it riveting, and that was long before the shaving foam appeared. It started me thinking about the line between the “organisation” and the staff, and who’s responsible when things go wrong.
We also looked at some of the legal aspects of the accountability of businesses in our tips for preparing for the UK Bribery Act 2011
Actually, UK law does recognise the concept of holding the “organisation” to account (especially for safety), and directors of companies and trustees of charities are legally accountable individually and jointly. This means they can be sued for something an employee did. They have to make sure there are proper systems and procedures, and that staff know and understand them, and they have to monitor that the systems and procedures work and that staff comply with them.
Getting back to Messrs Murdoch, their main message was “We knew nothing”.
Imagine a similar scene: you’re discussing with one of your staff some major disaster that’s happened in their department, and they say “I had no idea what was going on.”
My guess is you might reach one (or several) of the following unattractive conclusions:
- They’re clearly remote / out of touch and not making an effort to find out what goes on
- Their staff are clearly too scared of them to tell them honestly what was going on.
- Their management is so lax they don’t notice anything and their staff can get away with murder.
- They did know what was going on but they didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.
- They did know what was going on but they’ve been “selectively” ignoring it or they didn’t care as long as staff got results.
- They did know what was going on but bottled out of dealing with it.
Now imagine you have to sit in front of a judge or your most important customer and explain what happened and why. Scary!
Management and Leadership Tips – What Can We Learn?
So what can we learn from all this for our own organisations? I think there are some common-sense do’s and don’ts.
If you don’t already – you might want to make sure that your organisation is doing the following:
Read the rest of "Management Lessons from the News International Crisis"
Posted by Guest Blogger in Business Skills, Management & Leadership, News on July 26th, 2011| No Comments »
Our latest Retweet Competition closed on Monday April 18th – thanks to everyone who entered. The competition was kindly sponsored by MyTrainingManager - a fantastic organisation based here in the South East that provides a range of support services for businesses, including people management, development and training advice.
We had LOTS of entries – all of whom are now following MyTrainingManager on Twitter – so watch out for regular tweets from Jen Tarjanyi!
The competition prize was a free place on any of our courses up to 2 days in length, a selection which included our Management Training, Indesign Training and Excel Training courses (among many others!)
Our Lucky Winner was….. Stephen Whitehead
Stephen is a Brighton based web editor and designer, and has chosen to attend our Illustrator Training course on 28/29 July
He told us: “I was really surprised but excited to have won – I chose Adobe Illustrator as it’s something I always wanted to do but as the majority of my work is as a web editor/marketer it’s not something that I could readily justify budget for.”
The competition has really helped in raising awareness of the services that MyTrainingManager provides, and Stephen was impressed with the services they offer – he added:
“I think helping business in listening to and developing their most valuable asset (people) can only be a good thing. Often I think employees may have a mistrust of traditional HR which they may feel supports the company first. I also feel that employees may fear repercussions if they are too open. So I can really see the value of a specialised mediator that has the expertise to listen and help in finding the balance of interests.”
To find out more about MyTrainingManager’s services, contact Jennifer Tarjanyi on 07595 963448 or at jennifer.tarjanyi@skillssoutheast.co.uk
Posted by Faye Binfield in Competitions, News on April 26th, 2011| No Comments »
What are Active Listening Skills?
“A good listener tries to understand thoroughly what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but before he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is…” (Kenneth A. Wells)
Listening is one of the most useful skills we can have. How well we listen has a major impact on how we do our job, and on the quality of our relationships with others.
Active Listening intentionally focuses on who you are listening to, whether in a group or one-on-one, in order to understand what he or she is saying. As the listener, you should then be able to repeat back in your own words what they have said to their satisfaction. This does not mean you agree with, but rather understand, what they are saying.
Active Listening is a key business skill, and is covered on our Management Skills training course as well as our Leadership training course in Brighton, Sussex. We also offer a course specifically on Active Listening Skills which can be arranged on a private or on-site basis if you want to focus on this topic alone.
Active listening is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding. Often when people talk to each other, they don’t listen attentively. They are often distracted, half listening, half thinking about something else.
For example: When people are engaged in a conflict, they are often busy formulating a response to what is being said. They assume that they have heard what their opponent is saying many times before, so rather than paying attention; they focus on how they can respond to win the argument.
Are you a good listener? Think about your relationships with the people in your life – your boss, colleagues, subordinates, best friend, and spouse. If asked, what would they say about how well you listened? Do you often misunderstand assignments or only vaguely remember what people have said to you. If so, you may need to improve your listening skills. The first step is to understand how the listening process works.
Four Steps to Active Listening
- Hearing. At this stage, you simply pay attention to make sure you hear the message.
- Interpretation. If you fail to interpret a speaker’s word correctly it may lead to a misunderstanding.
- Evaluation. Decide what to do with the information you have received.
- Respond. This is a verbal or visual response that lets the speaker know whether you have gotten the message and what your reaction is.
Active Listening Tips:
- Don’t talk-listen. People like to have a chance to get their own ideas or opinions across. A good listener lets them do it.
- Don’t jump to conclusions. Many people will tune out a speaker when they think they have the general idea of the conversation.
- Ask questions. It’s perfectly acceptable to say, “Do you mean….?” or “Did I understand you to say….?”
- Overlook a speech problem, a twitch, or sexist language. Paying too much attention to these types of distractions can break your concentration.
- Keep an open mind. The point of listening it to gain new information.
- Listen to others’ points of view and ideas. It could turn out to be fascinating.
- Provide feedback. Make eye contact, nod your head and if appropriate, interject a comment such as “I see,” etc.
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Management & Leadership, News, Personal Development on April 15th, 2011| 2 Comments »
“Leadership & Management” Training Grants Programme Available NOW!
£1000 Training Grants
Training Grants are limited – application forms below…
Businesses who employ between 2 and 249 people can apply for up to £1,000 of matched funding towards any training courses that will help to develop their organisation’s people management skills. The new Leadership and Management Advisory Service (LMAS) is designed to help eligible employers fund training and development opportunities for their senior leaders.
This funding can be used towards a range of Silicon Beach Training’s courses, including our Management Training and Leadership Training courses, as well as other personal development programmes like our Appraisals Training and Change Management Training courses.
If you are interested in applying and would like to discuss the courses we have available, please call us on 01273 622272 or email info@siliconbeachtraining.co.uk
Is my Organisation Eligible for a Leadership & Management Training Grant?
The Leadership & Management Training Grants are open to any organisation which:
- has 2 to 249 full time equivalent employees
- can display the potential for high or fast growth, defined as:
- if trading for more than 12 months have the potential to increase turnover by 20% each year for three years
- if trading for less than 12 months have the potential to achieve a turnover of £500,000 within three years of trading
How Can I Apply for a Training Grant Towards a Course at Silicon Beach Training?
1) Identify Suitable Training
Identify the training course or courses that you would like to attend – remember, the courses must help you to increase your organisation’s people management skills – so the following courses would be applicable:
Read the rest of "£1,000 Leadership & Management Training Grants Available"
Posted by Andy Trainer in Business Skills, Leadership & Management Training Funding, Management & Leadership, New Free Resources, News, Personal Development, Train to Gain Funding on April 12th, 2011| 5 Comments »
THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED
Win a free course at Silicon Beach Training via MyTrainingManager
We’ve teamed up with MyTrainingManager to offer you the chance to win a free training course at Silicon Beach Training with our simple ReTweet Competition.
Simply retweet our competition tweet, and follow @SBTTraining and @jen_mtm (Jennifer Tarjanyi from MyTrainingManager) to be in with a chance of winning a place on one of a great range of training courses here at our training centre in central Brighton. A list of the courses up for grabs, more details on how to enter and terms and conditions can be found below.
MyTrainingManager is a flexible and cost effective service providing business support, people management, development and training advice to businesses in the South East. Read our interview with MyTrainingManager’s Jennifer Tarjanyi in the blog last week to find out more.
Keep your eyes peeled on this blog this week too for more information about New Training Grants which could help you to access valuable courses for your staff.
How to enter our ReTweet Competition:
Its so easy, all you have to do is:
- Retweet our competition tweet – or copy and paste the following in to a new tweet
RT to Win a FREE course at Silicon Beach via MyTrainingManager (also follow @jen_mtm & @SBTTraining): http://bit.ly/eJsCO2
- Follow @SBTTraining and @jen_mtm
- That’s it!!!
The closing date is Monday 18th April – so get your tweets in before then!
Competition Prize:
You can win a free place on any of the following courses:
Read the rest of "ReTweet Competition: Win Free Training at Silicon Beach via MyTrainingManager"
Posted by Andy Trainer in Brighton, Competitions, News, Offers on March 28th, 2011| 1 Comment »
Interview with Jennifer Tarjyani from MyTraining Manager – plus a chance to win a free course
Jennifer Tarjanyi from MyTrainingManager recently attended our Blogging Training and Social Media Training courses, and we took the opportunity to catch up with her about what they are doing to help businesses in the south, and how their new MyTrainingManager service can help managers to make the most of their training budget by choosing training that is appropriate to their needs.
In addition to online marketing courses, Silicon Beach Training offers a wide range of Management Training, Leadership Training, Appraisals Training and Project Management Training courses (including PRINCE2 Training and MSP Training) in Brighton, Sussex. We will soon be launching a competition in partnership with MyTraining Manager to win a free course at Silicon Beach – more details to follow soon…!
Read on for our interview with Jennifer about the new MyTrainingManager service
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Brighton, Competitions, Management & Leadership, News, Offers, Personal Development, Train to Gain Funding on March 23rd, 2011| 1 Comment »
COMPETITION NOW CLOSED!!
Winners to be announced by 3rd June – watch this space!
Our next photography competition has been announced follow it on twitter and facebook. The theme is be “Lifestyle” you can win prints on aluminium that look like floating panels.
Photography Competition – ‘Environment’
northern lights by www.heatherbuckley.co.uk
The theme for our competition this time is ‘Environment’ so no matter where you live, or what you do, you can get out there and get snapping. You can photograph your own environment or others, just post your entries on Flickr to be in with a chance of winning our fantastic prize! If you don’t already have a Flickr account it’s easy and free to set one up, then you need to join the group, then just add your image/s (you can enter up to 2 images) to the Silicon Beach Training Flickr group.
To follow this competition head to Flickr, our Facebook page, and also follow our RSS Feed. The winner will also be announced on this blog and also on Twitter so don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @SBTtraining. We run regular photography competitions so keep in touch and let us know if you have any suggestions for the next competition theme.
Silicon Beach Training offer a full range of creative software courses including Photoshop Training, Illustrator Training and InDesign Training in Brighton, Sussex. We also run other useful business courses including Management Training, Leadership Training, Software Testing Training and MSP Training
‘Environment’ Photography Competition Prize
The prize for the winning photographer is your choice of any public one or two day training course here at Silicon Beach Training in Brighton. You could try something creative like Illustrator Training, something practical like a Management Training Course, brush up on something more technical like HTML5 Training or expand on your social media expertise with a WordPress, Blogging or Social Media course. A full list of public courses can be found on our training dates page (only public courses in Brighton with a maximum duration of two days can be claimed as your prize).
The prize is for the training course only and winners will be responsible for any travel or accommodation costs incurred.
Winning will also result in exposure across our website and various social networking sites (namely Twitter, Facebook and our blog) – excellent free promotion if you want to build your profile online.
Read the rest of "Photography Competition – Environment"
Posted by Aaron Charlie in Adobe Lightroom, Brighton, Competitions, News, Photography, Photoshop on March 16th, 2011| 6 Comments »
