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Discover and debate opinions about what really matters in organisations.
Change
Digital & Technology
Leadership
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The greatest organisational challenges of 2024
Our global series of events brought 183 leaders together in New York, London, Singapore and Zurich. They named their biggest organisational challenge and discussed how to shape tomorrow's workplace in...
Change
Leadership
Teams
Collective experience: An opportunity for hybrid organisations
Hybrid work is here to stay. But hybrid does present challenges. Large group, leadership workshops for events can catalyse performance and help drive business results.
Leadership
Just tell me what to do
We live in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times, but have you actually acknowledged this out loud or in your thoughts? Has one of your direct reports voiced this to you? We like a...
Emerging Talent
Innovation & Creativity
Why learning should be part of SMEs culture
As Millennials form a bigger part of our workforce and SMEs an increasing role in the labour market, it is imperative that businesses consider how to retain ‘early careers’ talent by embracing a...
Change
New year, new you?
We all do it. We aim so high at the beginning of the year. We set those personal and professional goals and feel that this time we’ll really keep the momentum going. Then, come February, we’re back to...
Leadership
The trust mandate for future leaders
Every year the PR giant Edelman publishes a global survey on one issue - trust. It considers the levels of trust we have in our public institutions, technical experts, each other - and our business...
Wellbeing & Personal Development
Do nothing - perfectly
That was an instruction at a recent Satipatthana meditation course I attended recently. 8 days of sitting on a meditation cushion, doing nothing but observing one’s sensations with equanimity. To ‘do...
Change
Sustainable Innovation
Sustainable development is good for UK business
Businesses unite in a bid to make the UK economy ‘fit for the future’ by backing sustainable development Earlier this week Impact along with 80 other organisations united to call on the Government to...
Change
What are you playing at?
Funny how something as playful as play can have negative connotations. On one hand, when we play we express our joyfulness, imagination and freedom. In other contexts, we can be seen as self-indulgent...
Talent
7 ways to compete with larger businesses for talent
All of our SME clients find it difficult to compete with larger businesses for talent. Whether it’s attracting graduates out of university or retaining mid-level managers, it’s a challenge for smaller...
Change
Sustainable Innovation
Business and the Sustainable Development Goals: what do they mean for you?
Francesca Burton-Project Manager, International Development Policy Unit, WWF-UK In September 2015 the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - a new...
Change
Sustainable Innovation
The times they are a changin'
A three year project to research and educate on the global problem of plastic pollution in our oceans. The last time we took our yacht Sula offshore sailing was in 2008. The previous year we had been...
Adventure
Dealing with the unexpected
For the past few years I have been competing each summer at various mountain bike orienteering events. These can vary from UK based events to packing my bike and flying overseas to some of the larger...
Wellbeing & Personal Development
What's your motivation?
I have always loved stories and characters. To me, these offer a fantastic insight into the drivers and motivators that influence who we are and how we interact with the world. In my forthcoming book...
Leadership
Power within the organisation
What are we really struggling for? Growing within the organisation often means to acquire more power. Power within the organisation can often represent an influence tool, a career indicator, a...
Wellbeing & Personal Development
Top tips for getting unstuck
I have an oddity. Or I guess, I am an oddity. I love change. I love new things. I love to change things up a bit just for the heck of it. This could be as simple as moving my office around or as major...
Change
Is it the end of work as we know it?
It’s the end of work as we know it. Gone are the days when having a job meant “doing your job.” No longer can anyone anywhere expect the future of work to be the same as it was in the past. Innovation...
Change
The organisation is a purposeful living system
We are in the midst of a metamorphic period of change unlike anything the world has seen since the Late Middle Ages. With “meta” (meaning “form”) and “morph” (meaning “change”), the word suggests the...
Emerging Talent
Talent
The dangers of generational stereotyping
Let’s stop stereotyping whole generations of people and look more closely at the similarities and differences that make us all who we are. Human beings love to categorise things. It is core to the way...
Wellbeing & Personal Development
Laughter is the best medicine
Laughter Yoga started in 1995 by Dr Madan Kataria in a park in Mumbai with just five participants. Today there are over 10,000 laughter clubs in 76 different countries – just showing the need to laugh...
Leadership
The power of story
‘A Story is like the water you heat for your bath. It takes messages between the fire and your skin. It lets them meet and it cleans you.” - Rumi, StoryWater. As a storytelling expert, I live for...
Wellbeing & Personal Development
Company boredom training
Interestingly, there is this multinational company whose training explicitly explores boredom. They start with the scenario: “You are at work. You have had no break. What you are doing seems...
Wellbeing & Personal Development
The bed is back in business
The bed is on the agenda. Opinion leaders are encouraging you and your organisation to pay attention to your bed behaviour, your ‘sleep hygiene’. It was certainly a topic of conversation with a group...
Wellbeing & Personal Development
Speaking from solid ground
How to Give a Speech How do we create excellent communication? How do we stand up and speak with confidence and credibility? It is a question many of us ask in haste, as the moment for making a speech...
Change
Can you learn from the safety zone?
Now in its fourth year, Learnfest has taught us that learning, like achieving, is done best when you’re outside your normal environment and comfort zone. The comfort zone, as defined by Lifehacker...
Change
Wellbeing & Personal Development
The first hour - something better than coffee
I recently read an intriguing article titled, " How 7 Female Leaders Spend their First Hour at Work ". Initially I was skeptical that reading this would do to me the things it advertised. Things like...
Wellbeing & Personal Development
Happiness at work
Ask most managers what their top priorities are for their direct reports and I would be hugely surprised if the word ‘happiness’ appeared anywhere on a list littered with words like ‘productivity’,...
Innovation & Creativity
If you haven't found your passion yet
Jamie Catto - Creator, Producer/Director of the multi-award winning global 1 Giant Leap films and albums and founder member of Faithless is now leading uniquely transformative workshops and one-on-one...
Innovation & Creativity
The alchemic learning test
Planning a learning intervention? Great! But is it “alchemic”? No idea what we mean? Read Senior Consultant Liz Wilson’s piece on alchemic learning here . You can run your learning intervention...
Sustainable Innovation
Sustainable Development Goals
Impact’s Community Partnerships Manager Jo Appleby discusses the UN SDGs and what they mean for people and businesses everywhere. Late last year I attended an event on ‘How to embed the Sustainable...
Innovation & Creativity
Alchemic learning
Very recently a few of us at Impact decided to remind ourselves of what actually ‘makes us learn’. We made this a very personal enquiry and each thought hard about why some learning really sticks and...
Digital & Technology
Leadership
Leadership in the digital age
New technology is changing everything in increasingly unpredictable ways. Every senior leader in every organisation everywhere must be able to answer a simple question: ‘How do we evolve?’
Change
Happy New Year greetings from Shanghai
Impact’s Head of Asia, Phil Holdsworth , looks at the year ahead and what it means for organisations in Asia. The 2016 Chinese New Year celebrations begin on the 8 th February and 2016 is the Year of...
Innovation & Creativity
Top tips for smarter thinking
Drs Jamie Barker and Martin Turner from The Smarter Thinking Project share their best advice on smarter thinking for improved performance. Recognise One of the most important things about Smarter...
Wellbeing & Personal Development
What motivates you?
Ruth Ollis is a Senior Programme Manager at Impact UK. We all come to work in the morning, but have you ever considered what motivates you to enjoy being here 9-5? Money? Of course…but subconsciously...
Change
Wellbeing & Personal Development
Bouncing back
Mumback (mum/bak) noun a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth returning to the place of work. “Mumback” - this is what Lily Allen dubbed her return to the stage after 4...
Change
The winds of change are blowing!
New Year offers us all an opportunity to reflect on what has happened, to draw a fresh breath and to prepare ourselves for what is next. The very nature of work is changing fast. Disruptive innovation...
Digital & Technology
5 tips to make virtual learning work for you
Impact Italia's Federica Bocciardi offers some top tips for making virtual learning work for you. Are you just about to design or to buy a virtual learning programme? Here are some tips for you based...