Colin Gautrey

Exercise: Creating Your Personal Brand

by

This exercise is designed to get you thinking quickly and beginning to finalise your decision on the personal brand you wish to convey. It needs to be realistic and achievable, but also a little bit of a stretch. The whole idea is to focus your behaviour on the impression which you think will give you the greatest potential. It is also an exercise best done quickly and left over a few days to settle before you come back and finalise your personal brand words. I have done this exercise with my coaching clients so many times that I know that in 95% of cases it works. Read More

Personal Brand Word Examples

by

Below you will find a list of 100 words which you can use to stimulate the creation of your personal brand. All of them are words which my coaching clients have found exciting and practical in terms of allowing them to turn up the volume on their unique and distinctive strengths. When you look at some of them, you may wonder why anyone would find those words exciting, but this is a very personal thing. They needed to find the right set of words within themselves to light their fire and you need to do the same too. I would suggest you print out this page and use it in conjunction with the exercise to create your personal brand. Read More

A Simple Approach to Personal Branding

by

Corporations spend massive sums positioning their brand in the mind of their customers and the public. How much do you spend making sure you make the right impression with your market? Many people advocating the development of personal brand will suggest you need to develop a catchy personal statement or tag line. Nothing wrong with that, except some can find it very difficult without marketing or literary skills. In a nutshell, your personal brand is the Read More

Exercise: Challenging Your Business Relationship Attitudes

by

Attitudes are our mental perspectives of things/life.  They become our filter through which all our experiences are channelled.  Some of our attitudes can be very helpful while others are less so.  It is our attitude, to the relationship that determines the behaviour we use and so affects the ultimate result. The purpose of this exercise is to challenge your attitude towards your business partner. Make sure you keep an open mind and give yourself honest answers. Of course, it would be much better to do this as a team, but you may like to have a go first on your own! The questions which follow are arranged around the key themes we expect to see in all great business relationships. Read More

Understand Hidden Agendas

by

Agendas can be professional or personal. Personal agendas are not always known unless you are very close to the individual concerned. Yet these agendas have a significant influence on the personal decisions the individual will make.

"If you can discover the hidden agendas, you can find new ways to influence them."
It is your job to uncover these hidden agendas so your increased understanding can be factored into your plans. Unless you know what is against you, it is very difficult to influence effectively. While using the term hidden agenda, I do not wish to imply Read More

Create an Influence Plan

by

You are probably familiar with creating project plans to achieve the targets set by your organisation. This means you already have the skills to create an influence plan.

"The main reason why people don't plan their influence is that it doesn't occur to them."
In just the same way that you create a project plan, be very specific about what you want to influence (your deliverable) and then create an influence plan to achieve it. You can use many of the project management disciplines you are probably already familiar with, including Read More

Finding Time to Influence

by

It is all very well saying that to be more influential you have to do this or do that; but what if you don’t have time to do any more? If so, becoming more influential isn’t going anywhere. Time pressure comes from many directions. Bosses want you to do more with less. Peers and colleagues want you to work on and support their initiatives; and they are perhaps, a little less interested in what you have on your plate. People in your team often seem to have unrealistic expectations of the help and support you will give them. And then of course there is the pressure you put on yourself. If you are ambitious, you want to make things happen. You have big visions and plans to get results and assure the upwards momentum of your career continues. Read More

How to Manage When Agendas Conflict

by

When you are clear about what you want to achieve, it is often frustrating to find that others do not share your enthusiasm. A great deal of time and effort is expended building the case, considering the risks and planning the execution. Everything seems to make sense, and you are keen to get going — you want to implement swiftly. Then the problems start. Reaching out to your stakeholders, you begin to find out that some are not interested. They fail to buy into your project, or, worse, don’t even give you the time to explain your plans. When you do get to see them, they start to share insights with you about other things going on elsewhere in the organisation which seem to be in direct conflict with what you are working on. Trouble is, you can see that they may have a valid point. Doubts begin to set in as you realise that what you have been tasked to achieve is not necessarily going to be as straightforward as you originally thought. Indeed, you probably start to wonder why the people above you can’t agree on what should be done — must be the politics!

Understanding This Challenge

As an organisational strategy swings Read More

What Do You Do when You Meet the Unengageable?

by

As a motivated, successful and positive individual, it is all too easy to filter out the reality that not everyone is like you. Of course, everyone should be, shouldn't they? Totally bought into your idea, swelled and inspired by your enthusiasm, swept along with the change contagion. Yet as a fellow reader of the ATD, I know you know better than that. Many people out there you have to engage with are cautious (if not suspicious), worried, objectionable or simply not interested in your latest change project. Engaging with them requires a different approach, which may take you out of your comfort zone and could even challenge your integrity. But knowing this is one thing, doing it is quite another matter. Here are a few ideas to develop your practice...
  • Check Your Attitude. Allow for the fact that it is okay for people Read More

What Is Influence? Some Practical Implications

by

In my work, it is often easy to forget the simple things ― yet, they are often the most important things. If you want to be influential, a good starting point is being clear on what influence is. We throw words around, but if you pause a moment and pull it apart, you will find it contains some useful ideas to sharpen up your influence. In the fascinating world of interpersonal relationships, influence is...

"someone changing what they do, say, think, or feel"

Why they were influenced to do something different could be as simple as deciding it would be a good idea. The cause could be outside of their awareness ― like one of those little tricks some Read More

Terms and Conditions

ALL CONTENT PROVIDED ON THIS SITE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION ONLY. YOU REMAIN FULLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ACTION YOU TAKE.

View Terms and Conditions

Footprint

We help professionals in organisations such as:

Accenture | AXA | Bank of America | Barclays | Citigroup | Clifford Chance | Credit Suisse | EDF | Ernst & Young | Fiat Chrysler | Fujitsu | GE | Goldman Sachs | GSK | IBM | Lloyds Bank | NHS | O2 | Orange | Pfizer | SAP | Shell | Tesco | UBS | Unilever | Zurich