Pressure, tension, anxiety – call it what you will, but stress comes in all shapes and sizes, and it has become so universally recognised now that it seems to affect everything and everybody.

Levels of stress, whether physical or mental, and the ability to cope with it are different for everyone. Sometimes a degree of pressure can have the beneficial effect of sharpening the senses, but when your ability to deal with this pressure is exceeded, it becomes stress and the consequences may be operationally, personally or mentally significant.

Stress is based on our response to perception – how we personally perceive a situation. So if we can control our perceptions, we can control our levels of stress. Stress in the workplace can be triggered by a range of factors, such as poor communication, lack of commitment, constant or tough deadlines, peer pressure, new jobs and untrained staff, personal problems, noise…. the list could go on an on.

By asking the right questions, identifying likely sources of work-related stress and considering alternative options we can begin to identify some changes or variations that can be implemented relatively easily to reduce stress.

Learning how to effectively deal with stress triggers can greatly improve the overall dynamic of an organisation. Having a solid awareness of and being able to effectively control of the main stress triggers can immediately reduce stress in the workplace.

The obvious benefits of being ‘stress aware’ are huge but in plain terms, a less stressful working environment can resultantly increasing productivity, creativity and overall performance all round.

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

Innovation comes from resourceful problem solving.  Or, creative problem solving is a method of finding innovative approaches for resolutions to problems.

Creative problem solving works very well today in a large number of organisations, but what does it actually mean and what benefits can be obtained from this?

One of the most important features of ‘creative problem solving’ is the fact that if can turn a problem into an opportunity to improve the organisation.  Therefore, creative problem solving is basically one method of approaching change within an organisation, normally involving a team approach.

Some successful organisations have recognised that their own people often hold the keys to innovation within themselves and only need the right outlet to share their experience based ideas. This process brings together various people including managers, office staff, line workers or supervisors, and many others and the people chosen to participate will usually depend on the particular problem.

The problem could be any of a number of situations or needs.  But regardless of what the problem or need may be creative ideas and new approaches can often make the difference between a successful company and one that is unable to remain efficient and competitive.

It also offers a way to introduce change into an organisation that minimises the normal fear that usually accompanies change; by including and empowering the staff to develop these ideas and solutions, the creative problem solving process becomes a change agent that can effectively turn resistance into action.

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

The ability to make wise decisions is a fundamental when considering the differences between good managers and great managers.

All levels of management roles include having to make all sorts of decisions; decisions that are informed and sensible and based on fact.

Effective decisions are sometimes made following a split-second mental process, but there is definitely always some sort of process involved. This includes isolating the objective, collecting relevant information, consideration of feasible options, actually making the decision then follow up afterwards. Strong managers who are adept at this can usually follow this pattern in a matter of seconds; it becomes easier with practise and over time.

Effective decisions should always be action-oriented - if you can’t act on your decisions, then generally, it’s a waste of time.  Knowing what ‘the right thing to do’ is is is not always easy though, as we are often presented with a range of solutions to a specific problem. However, key character traits of high performers are the ability to be able to make the right decision quickly - this sort out the stronger, more capable managers from the mediocre ones and can result in having a highly motivated, reliable and interested workforce rather than a lacklustre, indifferent, ineffectual team.

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

Effectively managing performance simply facilitates the effective delivery of strategic and operational goals. It basically comprises various tools and systems to ensure that goals or targets are consistently being met in a business-efficient manner and it can focus on the performance of the organization, a department, individuals or internal processes.

Performance management systems are usually designed to align the organization directly with the strategic goals and can resultantly decrease the time taken to create strategic or operational changes by clearly communicating the changes through a specifically planned approach.

There is therefore an obvious and immediate correlation between using performance management programs and improved business and organizational results. Benefits include:

• Direct financial gains
• Growth in sales or market share
• Reduced costs
• Motivated staff
• Less time wasted

This can obviously mean a more enthusiastic workforce and indeed, it often improves employee engagement - everyone understands how they are directly contributing to the organisations high level goals. Additionally, because of its cyclical nature, performance management can realise the possibility of promotion and make it appear more attractive, attainable and worthwhile.

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

Risk Management can be determined as the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimise, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of adverse events.

Sources of risk are numerous nowadays and the strategies to manage risk include various methods such as transferring the risk to another party, avoiding or minimising the risk, reducing the negative effect of the risk, and actually accepting some or all of the consequences of a particular risk.

pitchblue treats this highly critial part of an organisations procedures with an enterprising blend of knowledge, expertise and practicality to ensure that delegates attain an appropriate understanding of health and safety practises, enabling them to achieve the ability to effectively manage health & safety in their workplaces by designing, implementing and monitoring appropriate programmes and procedures.

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

Project management is basically the discipline of planning, organising and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific goals, objectives or plans. Put simply, it sets out a planned, structured and timely route to get from A to B!

Project management has been around on both a conscious and subconscious level for centuries, and understandably so, but it wasn't until the 1950's that it became an recognised and important facet of successful management culture.

Nowadays, organisations and industries everywhere utilise robust project management systems to realise goals and objectives in a structured and timely manner.

Project management basically works through a series of milestones or stages - these may include

• an agreement or initiation stage
• a planning and design stage
• the execution, production or delivery stage
• montioring, controlling and evaluation
• project completion.

The benefits to managers of having workable project management systems are obvious, numerous and symbiotic to both manager and client. Having clear objectives, being able to accurately assess any risks or opportunities and empowering your people to become responsible for key parts of the project all makes sensible use of time and resources. This can result in practical and effective budgeting, maximisation of opportunities and available resouce and of course, a highly appreciative and infinitely less stressed line manager!

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

Sound financial management is fundamental to the success of any business and covers the process of identifying and managing 'cash flow ' and it's associated risks.

Financial management is important at all levels of human existence because, naturally, every entity needs to look after its finances. An astute financial manager looks at the available data to judge the performance of the business or company, whereas at the corporate level, the main aim of the process of managing finances is to achieve the various goals a company sets at a given point of time.

Businesses must obviously seek to generate substantial amounts of profits - this is usually carried out in line with a particular set of financial procedures and may utilise various tools and analyses used to make these decisions. pitchblue offers assistance and guidance on frameworks that make this process simple, clear and straighforward, with a primary goal to maximize  corporate value while managing the firm's financial risks.

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

 ‘…TQM, combined with effective leadership, results in an organisation doing the right things right, first time.’

Quality management is a fairly recent phenomenon and can be considered to have three main components - quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement.

Quality management focusses not only on product quality, but also the means to achieve it.

Quality management therefore uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality.

One of the ways in which we, at pitchblue, address this is by setting business goals and making worthwhile investments with reputable companies who support our standards, strategies and beliefs. We set, uphold and consistently aim to raise these standards and, of course, we regularly measure our success. This serves to identify any gaps and can highlight where and when we may indeed have to make changes again, to maintain momentum.

Quality Management is a good habit to develop and we can show you several approaches that may work for you, regardless of the size or nature of your business.

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

Creating and managing teams in the workplace can lead to effective outcomes, but the success and longevity of teams in organisations will depend on how thoroughly organisational leaders understand how to extract the gains teams can provide.

If leaders don’t understand the skills they need to possess, as well as the group processes that are required to create and maintain the high performance of their teams, then ultimaltely, the team will not perform!

Leading teams to identify with the organisation’s objectives can be as challenging as efforts to develop team loyalty might be. When team members identify where their individual skills lie, and how this fits with the organisation’s objectives, their conceptualisation of problems and their solutions have a better chance of being consistent with the strategic objectives of the senior decision makers.The team’s loyalty to the organisation and identification with it's goals and objectives are also essential, otherwise the team is not likely to produce worthwhile outcomes.

Today, as leaders, we should be aiming to develop and use high-performance teams to ultimately create and sustain competitive advantage. At a time when downsizing and consolidation decisions are followed by the statement, "doing more with less," we must consider every way to derive synergy from the organisation to sustain advantage over competing nations, competing industries, and competing businesses.

pitchblue offers a wide and interesting range of people-based strategies and solutions to ensure that your leaders and teams perform to the best of their abilities, under all circumstances.

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

Knowledge management is one of the most underestimated aspects of business success today.  Those organisation that encourage its managers to effectively increase their own, their teams and their organisations learning, knowledge and 'intellectual capital' have discovered the principal source of competitor advantage.  

We often get tied up with vast amounts of data, in fact data by itself is of little short or long-term value to anyone; it is by sharing information and leveraging knowledge that the wisdom that creates competitive advantage is developed. It is worth while remembering that it isn't just the creation of knowledge within a company that creates the competitive advantage; it is the innovation that comes from this knowledge that creates the advantage too.

Imagine your business where the managers had the knowledge, skills and behaviours to use knowledge to create competitive advantage!

A manager with this competency will be able to tap into one of the secrets to creating competitive advantage by understanding how to create value by:

• Turning data into information
• Turning information into knowledge
• Turning knowledge into wisdom
• Turning wisdom into competitive advantage.

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

Let's keep it really simple.  Health and safety are key business consideration that every company has a legal obligation to manage.  It is significantly more than a 'nice to have' or a moral obligation to look after your staff and your customers.

Safety management is one of those areas that we often neglect until a situation arises where we have little or no choice but to take action, and often to take action quickly.  The ability to promote a safe and healthy working environment by creating, implementing and managing a simple health and safety framework allows a business to consistently identify and control its health and safety risks, reduce the potential for accidents, aid legislative compliance and improve overall business productivity.

Safety management takes into account many many areas, and this competency can generally be broken down into five main areas:

• Health and safety management systems
• Creating a health and safety culture
• Workplace and work equipment hazards
• Hazardous substances and health hazards
• Legislation and legal compliance

Having competency around each of these five areas is essential for the manager of today.  To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.

About the only thing we can guarantee today is that nothing remains the same.  We are in a period of unprecedented change; change we must embrace and use to our advantage is we are to be successful.  The competency of the leader is to be able to create positive change, and the competency of the manager is to understand and manage change to make a positive  impact on their own and their teams performance.

There are many theories about how manage change both on a personal level and a business level.. Many originate with leadership and change management guru, John Kotter.  Being able to effectively use models like Kotter's eight step process and using that knowledge to your advantage is a key fundamental that any manager must really have a solid grasp on.  Here is the eight stages of Kotter's model that we use when we run change management programmes:

• Increase urgency
• Build the guiding team
• Get the vision right
• Communicate for buy-in
• Empower action
• Create short-term wins
• Don't let up
• Make change stick.

As well as creating business change, for a manager to see how their team responds to change is also a key competency.  Each person will follow a similar process as they respond to change and a competent manager will be able to identify where each of their team is along what is called the 'change curve'.  Knowing where each person is on the curve allow the manager to take appropriate action to move the team to the final stage of 'understanding and looking forward' quickly and easily.

• Shock
• Denial
• Depression or anger
• Resignation
• Acceptance and letting go
• Understanding and looking forward

To know more about how you can develop this competency, or how pitchblue can help to develop this competency in your managers please contact one of the pitchblue team.