Useful safety stuff

Some stuff you are bound to find useful – from the late George Robotham

With the following I have tried to summarise from 3 much more extensive lists

Personal success

1 Minimise the bureaucracy and bull-shit

2 The number one job of a leader is to transmit and embed high value standards.

3 Do not take yourself too seriously as if you do you will have difficulty coping with the fact many will not share your passion.

4 Challenging the status quo is a lot of fun and very satisfying, much better than putting up with fools and mediocrity. Being a bit of a stirrer is an admirable approach provided it is done in a sensitive manner.

5 Do not get too focused on work, your family should come first.

6 Believe in yourself. If you do not believe in yourself, how do you expect others to believe in you? If you want to achieve greatness, you have to first believe you are capable of doing it.

7 Keep building your skills. The path to excellence is a continual one that requires constant upgrading and development of skills.

8 Whatever you do must be based on a needs analysis.

9 Get out of your comfort zone. When you are out of your comfort zone you are already growing by default.

10 Be around the best. Someone said “It is hard to soar like an eagle when you are surrounded by pigeons” If you are hanging around people who are committed to excellence you are going to emerge a different person.

11 Set huge goals. Not the standard goals which you know you will definitely be achieving with a certain amount of work & effort. It is hard to achieve excellence without knowing what you are after.

12 Stay committed to doing something every day that furthers your goals and dreams. Celebrate success.

13 Be grateful for what you have.

14 Persist until it pays off. Never give up.

15 Take 100% responsibility for everything that happens to you.

The following are books I have found very helpful in this area, there are exercises you can do at the end of every chapter that makes it like completing a course on the topics.

1 “People Skills-How to assert yourself, listen to others and resolve conflicts”-Peter Bolton

2 “Reaching Out-Interpersonal effectiveness and self-actualisation”-D.W. Johnson

3 “Intentional Interviewing and Counselling”-A.E. Ivey

For those of you with teen-aged male children a bloke called Stephen Biddulph has three books that are essential reading for mothers, but more particularly fathers.

1 Manhood-An action plan for changing men’s lives

2 Raising boys

 

Key management concepts

1 Challenging the status quo is very satisfying but needs to be approached with sensitivity in some environments.

2 Be tough on the task but gentle on yourself & others.

3 People judge you by what they see you doing not by what you say you are doing.

4 Theory is important but constantly ask yourself if this will work in the real world.

5 It is often the relationships you build not your technical skills that determines success, network for success.

6 Catch people doing good and make a fuss of them, routinely thank people for their efforts..

7 Use face to face communication whenever possible. Produce and expect succinct documentation When reading your correspondence the reader must say “Wow” in the first third of the page. When listening to your presentation the listener must say “Wow” within the first 3 minutes. COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE in a way that inspires.

8 Have huge but realistic goals. Develop objectives and goals for what you do, if you do not know where you want to go you cannot go there.

9 Do the simplest thing that will work.

10 Remember the 6 P rule-Prior Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

11 Be a life-long learner and encourage those in your team to be the same. Help develop skills of team members.

12 Ask for and give regular feedback.

13 Concentrate on the things that give the biggest bang for your buck.

14 You do not know what you can get away with until you try.

15 Get some runs on the board quickly.

Leadership quotes

1 You can only lead others where you yourself are willing to go.

2 Inspired leaders move a business beyond problems into opportunities.

3 The best leader is the one who has enough sense to pick good people to do the job and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

4 What is important as a leader is not what happens when you are there but what happens when you are NOT there.

5 The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It has to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion.

6 Leaders must behave the way they wish their followers would behave.

7 Every now and then leaders should look back to see if anyone is following.

8 A leader takes people where they want to go, a great leader takes people where they ought to be.

9 The actions of a responsible executive are contagious.

10 A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the quality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.

11 Behind every leader is a great team, so hire wisely.

12 Good leaders follow the rules, great leaders change them.

13 The speed of the leader determines the rate of the pack.

14 Never doubt what a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.

15 Setting an example is not the main means of influencing, it is the only means.

The Change Navigator-K. Hanks

Needs

We want to live. There are physical needs such as food, air, water, the right temperature, health etc.

We want to love and be loved. Human beings are social beings needing a partner and friends who care and can be cared for.

We need a sense of belonging to someone and something, to be accepted into something more than ourselves, such as a relationship, an organisation or a belief.

We want a purpose in our lives, a sense we have a place in the greater order of things and our existence means something.

We want to become more. More than we are now. We want to grow and progress.

We want to feel important, respected for who and what we are. We want people to value us in some way. We desire impact on something and someone in making a difference.

We want to have variety. We want to have experiences in life, to interact with new people, ideas, things and situations.

We want to be competent in the things we do. We seek for expression and the ability to do it well.

We want to be safe within our physical and social environment. We want to be secure in our person and in our place from both physical and emotional harm.

You need to put thought into how your personal and professional life meets the above needs