Hazelbranch

A  lot of effort is put into measuring efficiency and returns on investment in organisations. The desire to measure and control  is strong, particularly now when we have just been through a recession and cost cutting is king. This is reflected throughout society and  in the government’s desire to cut the deficit with everyone being [...]

I spent four days on my own over the previous weekend looking after my two girls Olivia age one and Georgia aged two. It really opened my eyes to what my partner has to do most days. Although I do spend a lot of time helping with the kids I have never had to do [...]

One of my main bug bears is poor customer service. It is absolutely vital to customer service right, particularly handling customer complaints. If you don’t handle complaints well then not only are you likely to lose the customer who is dissatisfied, but they are more likely to tell others about bad service than they are [...]

I am a firm believer in the use of the urgent important grid by Stephen R.Covey, https://www.stephencovey.com/ It helps me to make sure I am prioritising my things to do. Unfortunately there are things that never seem to get done. They are personal admin tasks and usually not urgent. When I’ve got my business head [...]

I went to a great seminar in Brighton last week. It was run by an associate of mine Glen Poole. Glen specialises in working on not‐for‐profit projects and campaigns that are designed to make a BIG difference by getting more people, to take more action, more often. Glen got David Cameron to back the campaign [...]

This is the time of year when people make and take decisions about their future. Often this leads to people deciding they need to change their jobs or get more out of their current one. At the same time management teams are looking to set company performance goals and individual targets for the new year. [...]

I am looking to buy a house at the moment and it strikes me that despite the recession supposedly focusing everyone on best practice, the art of customer service seems to still be missing from a lot of organisations. The housing market in the South East is going through a bit of a bubble at [...]

I read an interesting article today on people holding themselves back by not the fear of failure but the fear of success. http://www.women-unlimited.co.uk/whats-holding-you-back/ This is classic procrastination; actively deciding not to do something until a later time. However this later time is often unspecified, and so never seems to come. Procrastination has many sources but [...]