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The Manager Blog -
What's New On The Happy Manager

Our Manager Blog contains updates and commentary from The-Happy-Manager.com

Information, ideas and discussion for those who are arguably best placed to make the workplace a happy place - managers!

We'd love to hear back from you so if you've any comments or suggestions, just go to our contact us page, or use the comment form at the end of most pages. Comments and our responses will appear here on the Manager Blog page.

With your help we can spread the word, and find a better way to manage!

Aug 25, 2010, Cosmetic Change Management Definition

As an alternative change management definition we explore a possible model of change from a rather unusual source.

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Aug 25, 2010, Improving Management Skills by Getting the Right Things Done

Improving management skills is not just about improving what and how we do things. It's also about improving the things we choose to do: getting the right things done?

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Aug 24, 2010, 5 Self Motivation Skills: How to Manage Your Energy

Without self motivation skills to manage and renew your energy, the desire to get things done can rapidly evaporate. Some activities can sap you of energy while others are a refreshing source of energy. Think about how you view your use of personal energy at work to support your self-motivation.

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Aug 24, 2010, Positive Attitude in the Workplace: It's Difficult to be Creative when you Feel Stale

How do you maintain a positive attitude in the workplace? It's very difficult to be creative when you feel stale

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Aug 17, 2010, Job Burnout: Finding Ways to Re-energize Work

Job burnout is an increasing scourge on our way of working. In this article we look at the characteristics of job burn out and suggest some ways to renew your energy for work

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Aug 16, 2010, Poor Teamwork - When Teams Become Exhausting

Poor teamwork is part of our stages of team development series, and provides helpful guidance on how to avoid poor teamwork: when teams become exhausting

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Aug 16, 2010, Characteristics of Effective Teamwork - Building and Sustaining High Performing Teams

Characteristics of effective teamwork is part of our stages of team development series, and provides helpful guidance on how to build and sustain high performing team.

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Aug 16, 2010, Stages of Team Development - The STAR Team Model

Stages of team development is a really helpful way to think about how a team develops. Recognising that teams need different things at different phases of their development is an important start, but how do you start up a team and get the team performing quickly, and what pitfalls do you need to avoid? Find out by reading this our first article in our series on teams.

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Aug 16, 2010, Team Building Techniques - How to Start-up a Team

One of the most important team building techniques is that of starting up a team. This article is part of our stages of team development series, and provides a crucial tips for starting-up a team.

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Aug 16, 2010, Team Building Question - How Do You Disband a Team?

An overlooked team building question is how you disband a team. Many teams come to their natural end, usually when the purpose for which they were formed has been achieved. Ending well is as important as starting well with a team, yet it is often overlooked.

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Aug 13, 2010, Lack of Teamwork - Forcing Rather Than Forming a Team

Lack of teamwork is part of our stages of team development series, and provides helpful guidance on how to avoid forcing a team to perform rather than forming a team.

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Aug 13, 2010, When Teamwork at Work Fails - When There is Too Much "Team" and Not Enough "Work"

When teamwork at Work fails is part of our stages of team development series, and provides helpful guidance on how to avoid teams becoming too cosy

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Aug 13, 2010, Teamwork Tips for Taking over an Existing Team

Teamwork tips for taking over an existing team is part of our stages of team development series, and provides helpful guidance on how to take over an existing team.

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Aug 13, 2010, Team Building in the Workplace - Building Performing Teams

Team building in the workplace for performance relies on a counter-intuitive idea - you need to develop the inidvidual. This article is part of our stages of team development series, and provides helpful guidance on how to build a performing team.

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Aug 13, 2010, Team Building Concepts - Developing a Team

Central to most team building concepts is the ability to take a group of individuals with various strengths and create. Here we explore ways to create a team. This article is part of our stages of team development series, and provides helpful guidance on how to develop a team.

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Aug 5, 2010, 8 Benefits of Goal Setting

What are the benefits of goal setting? We think one way to motivate yourself to set goals is to think more closely about the benefits this activity may bring you. Here, to start you off, we suggest eight benefits of goal setting.

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Aug 4, 2010, SMART Objectives

SMART objectives are those which use a well-known acronym to help us succeed in achieving those objectives. There's quite a wide range of variation in the way SMART is defined, and here we outline one of the most popular.

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Aug 3, 2010, SMART Goals: being Both SMART and SHARP

Just how SMART are SMART goals? Here we suggest a different version of the well known acronymn to help structure goal setting. This is more likely to result in challenging goals we are motivated to achieve.

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Aug 2, 2010, Goal Setting Definition: Making Goals Purposeful

Developing a goal setting definition can be as simple as deciding what you want to do and planning to do it! But wouldn't it be helpful if we knew what factors are more likely to make setting goals more effective and encourage success? Here we explore defining goal setting in a way that makes goals purposeful.

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Jul 30, 2010, Teamwork Concept - The STAR Team Model

To develop a teamwork concept such as the STAR team model it's valuable to reflect on the ideas and insight which inform the concept. Here we discuss the value of building on 3 important teamwork theories

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Jul 13, 2010, How to be Happy at Work

How to be happy at work? Use our collection of articles, tips and tools designed to help you find happiness in the workplace.

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Jul 13, 2010, What Causes Happiness?

In examining what causes happiness, we suggest 3 things you can choose to do to be happier at work. Gain some insights into whether or not we can choose to be happier.

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Jul 13, 2010, Why Are Happy People So Happy?

What makes happy people so happy? Some psychologists suggest one of the secrets of happiness is to build more complexity into our lives. We argue the case for simplified complexity!

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Jul 13, 2010, Towards a Meaning of Happiness at Work

Working towards a meaning of happiness at work, we explain what we mean by a 'Happy Manager'. Someone who manages from the head, heart and hands to help create a better workplace.

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Jul 13, 2010, What Makes a Great Manager?

There is no shortage of opinions on what makes a great manager. For us, a great manager is someone who leaves a legacy. Healthy, vibrant organizations. Happy colleagues and customers. A wider community that is better for the manager's stewardship of the talent and resources they develop.

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Jul 13, 2010, Is a Happy Person More Successful at Work?

Being a happy person is of course worthwhile for its own sake, but are happy people also likely to be successful? Some interesting answers to this question suggest they might.

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Jul 13, 2010, Finding Ways to be Happy at Work?

Can we find ways to be happy at work? We think so and below are some ideas to help promote both happiness and productivity in the workplace.

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Jul 13, 2010, Creating a Happy Workplace: Is Happiness Good for Business?

We believe that creating a happy workplace is a noble and worthwhile idea in itself, but is happiness really good for business? Here one business leader recalls his own experience of the impact of poor management, and shows how happiness makes good business sense.

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Jul 2, 2010, Why is Goal Setting Important?

Why is goal setting important? Here we discuss success, happiness and motivation, to suggest that both the kind of goals we set and how we set them matter a great deal.

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Jul 1, 2010, 8 Benefits of Change Management

What are the benefits of change management? To answer this you need to make some asumptions about how you manage change: for there to be benefits you have to manage change well! What are the crucial assumptions and what benefits could you then expect

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Jul 1, 2010, Change Management Articles

Looking for change management articles, tools and tips? Here is our growing selection of resources designed to introduce some of the essential ideas of change management, and some ideas to stretch how we currently think about change.

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Mar 22, 2010, Change Management Models: Recognising Lewin's Contribution

Many of today's change management models owe much to Kurt Lewin. One of the first structured approaches to change it still has much to offer today.

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Mar 21, 2010, Change Management Model: A Strength-Based Approach to Change

Imagine a change management model which starts by affirming what is right in an organisation. Much of the change in our organisations would benefit greatly from starting from a strength-based position, rather than a deficit mind set of focusing on what is wrong.Here we investigate how appreciative inquiry can help change the way we manage change.

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Mar 20, 2010, Team Goal Setting: Defining Meaningful Results

Team goal setting helps a team to define meaningful results and can quickly focus the team on performance. What steps can you take to put team goal setting in place?.

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Mar 20, 2010, Teamwork Defined by Strengths

Teamwork defined by strengths is the first stage towards developing teams that both perform and help create a happier workplace. It is the blend of different individual strengths that makes a team effective.

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Mar 20, 2010, Teamwork Theories - The STAR Team Model

Bringing together teamwork theories with some of the main principles of creating a happier workplace, we suggest the STAR team model as a way to develop teams that performa and help to create a happier workplace

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Mar 12, 2010, A Definition of Change Management: 4 Principles to Shape Change

As an alternative definition of change management we suggest that managing change is much more than a set of processes and steps, it should be guided by principles that help shape change.

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Mar 4, 2010, What is Change Management: Constant but not the Same?

What is change management? Whilst change might be constant it is not always the same. Different characteristics of change often call for different ways of managing change.But what characteristics of change might shape the way we decide to manage change?

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Mar 4, 2010, A Theory of Change Management: Planned or Emergent change

Much of the theory of change management is rooted in how change is understood. To understand where models of change might work best, and how theory can help change to be managed more effectively it's worth asking: how you do you think about change?

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Mar 3, 2010, What is Project Management? An Alternative View

It's becoming harder to answer the question: what is project management? As more and more managers include project management as part of their day job.There seems to be a blurring between project management and the day job.Perhaps we need to see more of what we do in our day jobs as projects.

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Mar 2, 2010, Free Problem Solving Flow Chart

Here's our free problem solving flow chart, a really useful guide to problem solving, based on our seven step problem solving process.

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Feb 26, 2010, Define Project Management

How would you define project management? As more managers increasingly need to manage projects as well as their day jobs we take a fresh look at defining project management.

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Feb 25, 2010, What is Problem Solving? What do you do when you don't know what to do?

'What is problem solving?' may seem a straight forward question to answer, but if we were to ask the question differently, how would you answer: What do you do when you don't know what to do? .

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Feb 24, 2010, What Makes a Happy Company? Six Questions to Build a Happy Workplace

What makes a happy company? Here we discuss six questions to help build a happy workplace: discover what a fluorishing workplace looks like.

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Feb 22, 2010, Problem Solving Questions

5 Problem solving questions to transform the way you think about problems in a minute!

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Feb 22, 2010, 7 Problem Solving Steps - in a Minute

7 problem solving steps in a minute is a quick guide to a problem solving process which challenges us to find the right problems to solve, and to define them as opportunities to be realised more than just problems to be fixed

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Feb 19, 2010, Decision Making Problems or a Problem Making Decisions

Decision making problems often arise because you aren't clear whether you have a problem to solve or a decision to make! But how do you know whether you have a decision to make or a problem to solve?

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