It was great working with Alison Lester again this month.

In this photograph you can see us posing with these fabulous Executive Assistants at Kraft Foods Singapore. Alison and I put together a special one-day workshop for them entitled 'Coping with Change'. We always enjoy working with Kraft, and we were pleased to hear they enjoyed the workshop too. Here is some of the feedback we received:

"The trainers are humourous and the workshop is not as dry as I thought it would be. It's very interesting and all the topics discussed are closely connected to work."

"Various approaches of trainers! Very engaging - great ability to keep the participants feeling comfortable. Good materials and detailed presentation."

"I have learnt many tools that I can use personally and professionally. The trainers presented it in a fun-filled manner that makes it very easy for one to practise."

Is your organisation experiencing a lot of change? If so, perhaps your admin and support staff might benefit from having this workshop adapted specially for you? Drop me a note if you are interested to know more, at shirley@shirleytaylortraining.com.

On 24 July, Al Argo will be conducting his popular public workshop Personal Effectiveness. In this article, Al talks about why you should strive to improve your effectiveness.

One popular author defined insanity as: "Doing the same thing that you have always done, while expecting a different result." Wouldn't you agree with me that if we really want to get better results, we have to do things differently than before? Here are 3 ways you can immediately become more effective:

1) Make the decision to be more effective.
This is the first step toward improving, changing or becoming more more effective. Many people are satisfied with the results they are already achieving - but successful people are always trying to improve, get better and grow! Personal effectiveness begins with a decision!

2) Manage your time, energy and resources effectively.
Once you make this powerful decision then you should really begin to focus on managing those things which you can control - your time, energy and resources! Time is fleeting; once it is gone, it is gone forever! Use it wisely, watch it, monitor it, audit it, and make the most of it. In the same way most people are limited in some way on their personal energy and available resources. As we learn to become better managers in these areas, we will become more efficient.

3) Make the most of your relationships.
The most effective and efficient people in the world know how to win with people! More valuable then anything are your relationships with your boss, clients and family. Business around the world is built or broken based on trust and relationships. As you invest your time, energy and resources in your relationships, you will see your personal effectiveness soar.

So, I challenge you to make a simple decision to become more effective, invest in learning how to manage your time, energy and resources more effectively, and do your best to make the most of all of your relationships. As you and I do these three things, our personal effectiveness and efficiency will continue to improve.

On 12 August, Alison Lester will be conducting her popular public workshop Creativity at Work.

Here are Alison's thoughts on the common phrase we all hear regularly, "Think out of the box":

I have a problem with thinking outside the box. With people who use the phrase lightly, I mean. We hear it all the time these days, but so often the people who say it don't stick around to explain what this box represents, so nothing changes.

"Think outside the box" sounds like a positive statement, and people feel they are motivating their colleagues by encouraging such behavior, but in fact what people often hear is, "You are incredibly conservative and unproductive, and I'm frustrated with you."

While I know for a fact that this is indeed what many managers feel, using the phrase "think outside the box" may not be the best way to change matters. Why? Because the box that has been built around our thoughts is our education, our upbringing, and, to a certain extent, the wiring of our nervous systems. So when I'm told to think outside the box, it can actually feel like I'm being told to question my past, disrespect my parents, and give up on the me I know and might even be comfortable with. Not that I haven't done all these things. I have, and I've benefited from all of it! But I probably wouldn't have if I'd had a boss telling me to do it all the time. I would have changed jobs, or at least developed my passive aggression.

I ran an improvisation workshop for a large music company once. The boss said to me at the beginning of the day, "I ask for a bit of creativity, and then I see what they give me, and I tell them, 'This isn't creative! Give me something creative!'" He expected me to sympathise with him, so he was in for a surprise when I chose instead to question his approach and explain why his staff resented him.

One of the reasons improvisation exercises are so helpful in the pursuit of creative thinking is that no one ever, ever talks about the box thing. Developing any type of communication on the spot requires not that one looks around for answers in the ether outside one's experience, but rather that one digs deeper than usual into oneself for relevant material. Instead of the box, I prefer the image of a great big sack, like the one Santa carries. I tell people to imagine that this sack is always with them, full of everything they've ever seen, felt, heard, read, tasted, loved, hated, hoped for, investigated, recoiled from or flung themselves at. It contains everything they have to offer. If the perception is that there isn't enough in their sack, then, the answer is not to encourage them to think outside it, but first to learn to trust its value and also to put more into it: more movies, more art, more travel, more books, more animals, more people, more conversations that dare to venture into the obscurest corners of the heart.

For the manager, it seems to me that the opportunities for developing staff creativity exist above all in two areas. The first is in attitude. If there is anything you can do to make your staff feel safe offering you their ideas, do it. (Try smiling when they walk in your office, for a start.) Tell them you're interested in their sack of toys. If they don't pick the right toy for you right off the bat, encourage further digging. If you tell them you know it's in there, they're much more likely to find it. Secondly, look around at the office. Is there anything at all of interest to look at in it? Some people who study creativity believe that it is actually impossible to change the way people think from the inside, and that environment is the number one key to creative thinking. Give your staff something to look at, something to stimulate their brains, something to put in the sack. The box concept will slowly break down and go the way of all cardboard. Good riddance.