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Becoming a Peak Performing Leader Through Flow

Here’s a Riddle… Everyone has experienced me, but few people know how to find me. I cannot co-exist with anxiety, fear, anger… or multi-tasking. I don’t cost a dime, but if I could be bought, people would pay small fortunes to create me. I can show up any time, any place, and during any activity. …

Gamification And Techncial Writing

Gamification for this post is defined as applying a game, which also grants rewards, badges, or prizes. Can we apply this to technical writing? – Yes. Gamification applied to an organization’s documents can encourage employees to: read their policies and procedures by providing a mechanism for them to check in and out in order to …

When facilitation fails – a dilemma

Olba has asked for your advice. She has been appointed to a government sector board to represent her local peoples in decision-making and resource allocation. The organisation has been constituted with legislation that mirrors many provisions of the corporations act. Directors are not paid but Olba is happy to gain experience and serve the community.

The Minister appoints the board members and also a ‘facilitator’ to chair the board meetings. Olba resents the facilitator and knows that her colleagues on the board share her feelings. The government use this facilitator for a number of board and committee functions; she is well credentialed, politically well-connected, and somehow a ‘power behind the throne’ with several local organisations.

The facilitator is paid a sitting fee and does not appear to carry the duties that are imposed upon directors under the legislation. She is also often late for the meetings, arrives without having read the papers beforehand, and, on one memorable occasion, got some way through the agenda before realising which board she was chairing. This appeared to be a major conflict of interest as it became obvious she was currently also chairing a board that competes with Olba’s board for funds.

Olba has done some governance training and a lot of reading on the topic. She aspires to be a prominent and useful board member and a good ambassador for her people. The facilitator could cause an embarrassment that would thwart Olba’s aspirations. She is also, in Olba’s opinion, not performing well enough and possibly harming the organisation.

What should Olba do?

SumoSalad Hepatitis A Disaster

Sick worker triggers health alert for salad bar [Editor’s note: We’re pleased to bring you another guest article from crisis consultant and frequent contributor Tony Jaques] When hepatitis A was discovered in a worker at Sydney fresh salad bar SumoSalad, the company initially did some things well, but they also made some crucial errors in …

Key Training Ideas for Your Customer Service Program

We all have different ways to train using customer service programs. Some would say some of us remain in the dark ages, but you also might argue that not all that’s old-fashioned is bad. We often buy things because they are antique or retro. It may make the untested or lightly tested technology of the …