In March we’re launching our career club – Advance Your career Today (ACT). Our main goal is to help you to advance in your career and keep you up-to-date on the latest career news and trends. Visit the ACT page and register now.

We’re also launching a book club starting in March.  Visit the book club home site to register.

 By Sonia Layne-Gartside at 7:29 pm

Please check out our report recapping the activities and events in which the school was engaged in 2012. It will give you a great overview of just what SLPA does. Click here to read.

 By Sonia Layne-Gartside at 5:11 pm

Theodore Roosevelt reportedly said “the most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.” Research today is showing that it’s also one of the keys to good health.

According to research published in the Health Psychology Journal (2011), employees who believe they have the personal support of their peers at work are more likely to live a longer life. Researchers from Baylor University (2011) also found that people who endure incivility and rudeness at work from their colleagues often take that stress home with them, and this can have negative effects on their family and marriages — and even their spouses’ jobs. What they found was when employees go home stressed and distracted, their partners must often pick up the slack and assume more family responsibilities. These greater demands at home may interfere with their performance at work. So, the toxic atmosphere at work may potentially “inflict further damage beyond the workplace…and cross over into the workplace of the partner.”

The question is – what can we do to build better relationships at work? It starts with having the right mindset. The attitude we take when we go into work is extremely critical and often the first step to building better work relationships. In particular, acknowledging that people are different, and being willing to accept that these differences can be a positive force within the organization.

When people come together, there is always going to be some unwelcome and unproductive friction. We cannot eliminate it. Of all the problems we face in life, people problems are generally the toughest to solve. Research shows they take the greatest toll on us personally – producing significant emotional wear and tear, disturbing our sleep , and if not tackled effectively they can drag on and affect our health.

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 By Sonia Layne-Gartside at 11:42 pm

Change before you have to. – Jack Welch

Benjamin Disraeli once wrote “Change is inevitable. Change is constant.” We’re experiencing this more and more in our lifetime. Within the last 50 years, we have witnessed more change across the world, than perhaps at any other period since World War II. We’re in the midst of a revolution, a period of fundamental change that is transforming the world of business. There are a lot of forces which are constantly driving change – globalization, our knowledge based economies, the convergence of information communication and technology, and customers who are more knowledgeable, and thus more discerning and demanding. These changes are exhausting, inescapable and coming at us faster than ever.

These many forces are consistently driving change in the contemporary workplace, and when you think about it, an organization depends on its environment for survival. If it is to succeed, its leaders must monitor the environment and align the organization with the changes that occur. The organization itself must therefore change as its environment changes.

Change can be difficult. It is difficult when it is a personal endeavor, and it is even more difficult to enact in an organization, particularly when people are ever so comfortable with the status quo. It’s hard to get them moving. But it can be done. To create a change ready organization we have to embed in the DNA of our organizations that change is constant. It’s quick and happening all around us. We will not survive if we don’t learn to adapt and be proactive about it.

To do this, you need to employ a new kind of leadership, one that is not about command and control, but about motivating, growing and empowering your team. You want to embrace a change mindset and promote and instill it in your team. You want to sensitize people to the pressures for change that are around you, emphasizing that we cannot afford to stay still or we will be left behind and cease to exist – like Borders, Compaq, or Enron.

You cannot wait until you have to a change initiative to sensitize people to these pressures. This must be a continuous process – try to disrupt people’s comfort zones and continuously work on getting rid of that business as usual approach in your organization. To do this, start with yourself. Never underestimate the power of setting an example. That’s always the best way as a leader to start making changes in your organization. Walk the talk.

• First, immerse yourself in the changes that can and are affecting your organization/industry – read blogs, books, magazines, gather insights from your customers. Know what is happening and about to happen.

• Share the interesting and critical things you find with your team, recommend books to them, organize internal training and encourage your team members to embrace the exploration of ideas and changes that emerge from your readings. This is the process you need to employ to help people open themselves up to change.

• Inculcate this exploration and embracing of new ideas and trying out new ways of doing things in the values and culture of your organization. Make it a part of people’s everyday work life. You want to create a learning organization – where people help each other to learn and where people understand and are braced for paradigm shifts.

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 By Sonia Layne-Gartside at 11:34 pm