Dear [First_Name],

With winter now fully upon us in Australia, a lot of illness has hit. As readers of my newsletter, most of you are the custodians of the health and wellbeing of the workforce. I heard recently on the radio there was a strong correlation between illness and dry nasal passages, of all things! One doctor suggested before night to line one's inner nostrils with a thin coat of Vaseline from a Q-bud.

This simple act moistens the nose, hinders viral/bacterial cultures and therefore reduces colds. Simple, but effective? I am trying it and after 3 weeks, so far so good. Benefits? Reduced illness, healthier noses and if everyone did this, no-one would be picking their nose in cars anymore. Want to try this simple method? Let me know how you go via editor@theweissreport.com

Now, like many I finds diets to be a real challenge. I have been rather amazed by the whole glycemic index/load (GI/GL) phenomenon. GI is the rate at which energy is released in to the bloodstream. The slower, the better. Highly refined foods release quickly and therefore a high GI. Experts say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I have found eating porridge in the morning (unrefined oats and low GI) lasts me easily until lunch. Whereas a refined breakfast of say white toast and eggs gets my tummy rumbling within 2 hours. For more information, visit http://diabetes.about.com/mbiopage.htm or www.hha.com.au/books/0733616453.html to read from the Aussie founder of GI, Professor Brand Miller.

Any experience you have enjoyed on GI diets yet? Please email me via editor@theweissreport.com.

On health, I am recommending AHM. I am impressed with their work and approach. They have corporate programs that effectively pinpoint and manage health issues for employees. Not only about diets, they also prescribe health programs monitored by account managers in confidence. You might have seen the commercials with Steve Waugh fronting as their endorser. They also are linked in to the University of Michigan. AHM has a mission to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians at work. Visit www.ahmg.com.au or email me to find out who to talk to at AHMG via editor@theweissreport.com

In this edition:

• Humanagement Active Leadership Series
• Corporate Turnstiles
• Readers' Poll
• Latest Thoughts on Negotiation and Game Plans from Harvard
• What P&G Knows About the Power of Design
• Recommended Reading

  Humanagement Active Leadership Series

Steve Denning presents: Leading Transformational Change   Seminar soon approaching - Seats filling fast.

The narrative technique is one of the few ways to handle the most difficult challenges of leadership: sparking action, getting people to work together and leading people into the future. In this workshop, you will interact with one of the world's most experienced practitioners in narrative who will provide hands-on tips and tools for mastering new narrative techniques. » Register for this event » Download Seminar brochure [PDF 272Kb]

Who should attend: Executives Leaders Managers Change Agents Knowledge Managers Internal Communications Managers           Organisational Development, HR and Training Professionals, Marketing and Branding Specialists HR Directors Anyone interested in narrative techniques for leadership.

About Steve Denning Steve Denning is the author of the acclaimed book Squirrel Inc. A fable of leadership through storytelling, and now also The Leader's Guide to Storytellling, Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. Steve was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He studied law and psychology at Sydney University and worked as a lawyer in Sydney for several years. He did a postgraduate degree in law at Oxford University in the U.K. Steve then joined the World Bank where he worked for several decades in many capacities and held various management positions, including Director of the Southern Africa Department from 1990 to 1994 and Director of the Africa Region from 1994 to 1996. Steve has given many presentations on knowledge management and storytelling in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Australia. He was a member of the Conference Board Quality Council V from 1992 to 1996. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (U.K.) For more information on Steve please visit www.stevedenning.com

Workshop Program 08:00 08:30 10:30 11:00 13:00     Arrival tea and coffee Workshop Start: Leading Transformational Change Morning Tea break Workshop Resumes Workshop concludes » Register for this event » Download Seminar brochure [PDF 272Kb]

Gerry Crispin presents: CSI: Australia Core Staffing Innovations Attract and Retain Tomorrow's Workforce

Admit it. You've always known the approaches to staffing used by most firms for the last 20 years just won't cut it much longer. But, before you take an extreme approach, first consider how the most competitive firms in the world wrestle with these same challenges. Yes, they go back to the basics, align themselves to their businesses, define and measure excellence, and then look in the mirror every day. No, they don't blow it up and start over - instead, they think through the risks (and rewards). They investigate carefully... often with the help of their peers and then re-engineer on a strong foundation. They have a plan. What's yours? Here's your opportunity. This 1-day workshop will help you build-up and work-on critical elements that offer a new plan. It is designed strictly for practitioners who take the responsibility for aligning their recruiting model to their corporation's business seriously. Pre-work is required so we can contrast and share practices in a highly interactive format. » Register for this event » Download Seminar brochure [PDF 95KB]

Who Should Attend Recruitment and Staffing Managers Organisational Development, HR and Training professionals. HR Directors. Anybody responsible for recruitment and staffing in their organisation.

About Gerry Crispin As a practitioner, Gerry spent more than a decade in various HR Executive and Staffing Management roles with Johnson and Johnson and, during his 30 year career, he has also worked in nearly every facet of the staffing industry from executive search consultant and contract recruiter to director of university career services and general manager of a major recruitment advertising agency. Gerry is extremely active in the professional community and has served on the national Board of Directors of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) as well as the national board of the Employment Management Association. SHRM has over 200,000 members and still enlists Gerry's time and talents to lead a volunteer expert panel of Workforce, Staffing and Deployment professionals that advises the Association on global staffing trends. As a consultant, Gerry meets behind closed doors 4 times each year with 3-dozen, multi-national staffing strategists and facilitates a 'colloquium' discussion on best (and worst) practices. He gets them to share their cutting edge tools, current challenges and solutions to common problems. Participants include some of the most competitive corporations in the world (www.careerxroads.com/news/colloquium.htm). Gerry established independent credibility early in his consultancy by refusing to serve on any vendor advisory board or represent any product.

Workshop Program 08:00 08:30 09:00 10:15 10:30     12:00 12:45     14:00 14:00   15:30     Registration & Coffee Introduction: Review Workshop Deliverables Laying the Foundation and Designing Around a Central Core Morning Tea Taking Shape: Funnels or Pipelines?    Sources of Quality Material: Skills and Data    (Contrasting US and Australian participant surveys) Lunch Opening Doors and Windows - the Job Seeker Experience:    The Choice to Enter is Theirs... not Yours.    (Contrasting US and Australian participant surveys) Afternoon Tea The Cost of Skimping on Maintenance: Retention & Feedback    Summary: The three laws of recruiting Workshop concludes » Register for this event » Download Seminar brochure [PDF 95KB]

  Corporate Turnstiles

Anthony Crowley has joined Komatsu Australia as Head of HR. Prior he was Director Human Resources for Cleanaway.

Elaine Wilson joins CBRE as Regional Director Human Resources. She leaves Deacons where she was HR Manager.

Rebekah Silver joins Knight Frank as National HR Manager from Capital Finance where she was National Manager HR.

Helen Bermingham has become Global General Manager Human Resources with Ainsworth Game Technology. Previously she was with Pacific Brands as HR Manager.

  Readers' Poll

Winners of Learning to Fly are: Fred McMirtry, Simon Crollin, Samuel Wicks, Gene Taplitsky and Harry Wong. They were the first 5 people to respond to the last readers' poll on Retention.

Initiatives companies are deploying to better retain are:

• Engaging Key and hi Potential people more: 85%
• Better facilities: 75%
• Training/Education: 65%
• Climate Surveys: 45%
• Exit Interviewing: 45%
• Cultural alignment: 40%

Total respondents = 82

Next reader's poll:
What are your thoughts on the unfair dismissal laws mooted by the Australian Federal Government?

The first five respondents will receive The Art of Constructive Confrontation, to be reviewed in my next newsletter.

  Latest Thoughts on Negotiation and Game Plans from Harvard

If you make idle threats, it damages your reputation. Harvard Review publishes a compelling article on how to make a credible threat.

» Read More

  What P&G Knows About the Power of Design

The CEO of Procter & Gamble is not your typical Proctoid. A.G. Lafley, 58, has spiky white hair, paddles a kayak, and has a sunny, doorless office filled with examples of well-designed products.

After running P&G's Asia operation from Japan for four years in the mid-1990s, Lafley came to a very un-Procteresque conclusion: that design, not simply price or technology, should be P&G's key differentiator. Here's his take on his radical attempt to put design "into the DNA" of P&G.

» Read More

  Recommended Reading

Janine Allis: Business Secrets of the woman behind Boost Juice
James Kirby

Janine Allis is the most successful businesswoman of her generation. Her Boost Juice company is the fastest growing franchise in Australia and she is the highest ranking female on BRW magazine's Young Rich list with an estimated fortune of $36 million.

In the mid-1990's Allis returned to Australia as a single mother with no business qualifications and began a fruit juice company from her home. Today the Boost group is a multinational with outlets across Australia, Asia and the Middle East. In this inspirational book, popular business journalist and author, James Kirby, tells Janine's life story and outlines the key features of her successful approach to business.

A charismatic ex-model who has exploited the boom in healthy eating, Allis's story is full of surprises. From her early days in Melbourne night clubs to summers spent as a stewardess on David Bowie's yacht, here is a business story with a difference. This is the third title in Kirby's Business Secrets series following the earlier success of books on Harvey Norman's Gerry Harvey (recently named as one of the 100 'must read' business books by Boss magazine) and paper magnate Richard Pratt (see www.theweissreport.com/aug_issue19/) . Janine Allis co-operated fully with the author and publisher, providing photographs and background information previously kept private.

» Read More

Overcoming The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Patrick Lencioni

In his previous book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni offered readers a leadership fable which revealed the 5 dysfunctions that affect the performance of teams: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results.

Now in his new book, Overcoming The Five Dysfunctions of A Team: A Field Guide, Lencioni offers a practical hands-on guide that will give leaders, managers, facilitators and HR professionals the tools they need to eliminate the obstacles that prevent most teams from performing at the highest level.

Using assessments, specific tools, practical exercises and real-world examples, the book encourages all teams to ask the tough questions they must answer to overcome obstacles including:

• Is the team really a team?
• Do team members really trust each other?
• How is the team currently performing?
• Does the team rely on the leader to be accountable for adhering to decisions and standards?
• Is the team able to engage in honest dialogue with each other?
• Do the individuals put their own egos and personal aspirations before the team?
• Is the team prepared to invest the time and energy required to be a great team?

This is a great book, easy to read and compelling for any leader wanting to work more effectively.

» Read More

Machiavelli on Modern Leadership
Michael A. Ledeen

Niccolo Machiavelli, one of the eminent minds of the Italian Renaissance, spent much of a long and active lifetime trying to determine and understand what exceptional qualities of human character - and what surrounding elements of fortune, luck, and timing - made great men great leaders successful in war and peace.

In perhaps the liveliest book on Machiavelli in years, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago, Michael A. Ledeen measures contemporary movers and doers against the timeless standards established by the great Renaissance writer.

Titans of statecraft (Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterrand, Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton); business and finance (Bill Gates); Wall Street and investing (Warren Buffet); the military (Colin Powell), and sports (Michael Jordan) are judged by Machiavelli's precepts on leadership and the proper use of power. The result is a wide-ranging and scintillating study that illuminates the thoughts of the Renaissance master and the actions of today's truly towering figures as well as the character-challenged pretenders to greatness. Here is an exceptional book on Machiavelli and his ultra-realistic exploration of human nature - then and now.

» Read More

Learning to Fly
Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell

Today, no one is, nor can be, an expert in everything. In every challenge, it is easy to feel that you don't know enough to keep up with the accelerating pace of change inside our organisations, let alone the world outside. Start with the assumption that somebody somewhere has already done what you are trying to do. How can you find out whom, and learn from them? Learning to Fly shows exactly how to put knowledge management theory into practice, sharing the tools used and the experience and insights gained by two leading practitioners.

In Learning to Fly Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell share their experiences from a wide range of the world's leading knowledge management organisations. It is a practical, pragmatic workbook packed with hints and tips to help managers put knowledge management into action immediately. This edition also comes with a supporting CD-Rom with many useful and intelligent interactive tools for the budding knowledge manager.

» Read More

The Happiness Handbook
Dr Timothy Sharp

I like the work Dr Timothy Sharp is doing. A resident of Sydney, Tim is the founder of the Happiness Institute in Australia. In The Happiness Handbook, he shows that happiness is nothing more than a way of thinking and doing; that beliefs lead to actions, which in turn lead to happiness. His strategies are practical and simple and, in his experience with clients, effective.

His work is based on the premise that we can all achieve happiness if we are committed to being happier, believe we can be happier, think about things differently, and do things differently. In his view, beliefs lead to action, and action leads to happiness.

As a result of his experience for over a decade with helping people be happier, Timothy Sharp recognises that we each have our own individual obstacles to happiness. In his work and in this book, he begins with the question, 'What would your life be like if you were really happy?' From that point he helps the reader develop a happiness plan - a way of setting achievable goals to overcome the notion that our happiness is dependent on other people. He shows us that no-one can make us happy but ourselves.

Dr Sharp believes that we can all increase our levels of happiness by focussing on those areas of our lives over which we have control. He encourages us to:

• learn to focus on our individual strengths - those admirable qualities that we possess;
• understand the benefits of personal happiness to our relationships;
• think optimistically;
• look after ourselves emotionally and physically;
• understand the limits of what we can control;
• appreciate the present, and integrate happiness into our lives right now.

The Happiness Handbook does not rely solely on conceptual attitudinal change, though. It contains many practical approaches which embed the ideas presented. As well as accounts from the lives of others, there is a 'Happy Ending' story and a 'Happiness Activity' at the end.

» Read More

Wake Your Mind Up
The Mind Gym

Only you have the power to control your future, and if you haven't yet worked out in your own mind where you're going in life how on earth will you ever actually get there?!

It's a fact that many people have big dreams for the future - from relocating abroad to investing to get rich for example - but few are able to get in the right frame of mind to make firm decisions and act upon them. Thankfully The Mind Gym have produced Wake Your Mind Up to help us all find and achieve our true potential!

This is not just another tired self-help book, this is a well researched manual for life written from a basis of solid psychology and designed to inspire us, help us free our ideas to become reality and to give us the power to develop personally.

Self-development is the key theme of The Mind Gym and in this particular book, Wake Your Mind Up, The Mind Gym have created an easy to read book packed with anecdotes, quotes and practical tools that will help anyone who takes the time to apply their methods to develop a take-charge attitude, stop procrastinating and ultimately decide where we want our lives to go and to make the key decisions to control our future success.

The book is also of assistance in business as it tackles resolving conflict, changing attitudes, sensitively breaking negative news, becoming more influential and basically creating a more positive impact on people. By applying the techniques The Mind Gym have honed and by employing the tactics they have developed you should banish rising stress levels and become a creative thinker able to practically apply creativity to your life.

The book is written in such an accessible way, it does not assume a level of psychological understanding, nor does it patronise the reader. The use of anecdotes and quotations throughout make certain sections of the book very funny and it reads in a sort of familiar and friendly magazine style. The book is thoroughly fascinating as it reveals many secrets of the power of mind control, it is undoubtedly entertaining and if you apply what you learn you'll discover that The Mind Gym: Wake Your Mind Up has the power to transform your life quite literally.

» Read More

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