A cheap and effective way of beating the ransomware bandits let’s look at this from the other end first. Imagine you run a small business , like I do. The phone rings. It one of your people telling you that they can’t access any billing or client order information because all your files have been […]
Mining Rough Diamonds
Or why the best candidate may not be the obvious one This post is based on an article I wrote for the spring 2019 edition of the Institute of Water’s magazine The problem What do you do with a team member best described as a rough diamond, technically brilliant but a challenge to work with? […]
Another small act of kindness
in August 2017 I wrote about three small acts of kindness that I had experienced. In each the giver did not do have to do what they did, but did so anyway, and in each case I had a better day as a results. Nice…. In this case the small act of kindness was by […]
Building a team of many talents
In the summer of 2017 I was offered a three month contract as Interim Water Quality Monitoring Manager with Southern Water to help implement a new Compliance and Resilience directorate. Writes Bob Windmill Eight months later (yeah, I know) I had led the creation of an entirely new team of six monitoring scientists and a […]
Three things I value: Part 2 – Worth paying a bit more for
In this post you will read about a device that costs low hundreds of pounds which only does he same basic job as a something costing about a third of that, but one which I still wouldn’t want to be without. Writes Bob Windmill So, what is this device, and what makes it worth the […]
Three things I value: Part 1 – the cheap but effective
Reading the post you will see why I value a device that cost less than thirty pounds, that at various points caused me to pull my hair out, but yet I wouldn’t want to be without. Writes Bob Windmill So what’s the cheap but effective example, then?
Three things I value – How it came about
I firmly subscribe to the idea that people and relationships are more important than material possessions, yet in a recent discussion I found myself defending the idea of possessions being important. writes Bob Windmill Subscribe or buy? The context was a discussion with a group of friends on millennials increasingly buying rather than possessions, and […]
Solving the right problem
And not the one you thought it was… Have you ever wrestled with a problem, spending hours and days getting nowhere? Where what ever solution you come up with just wouldn’t work? This post is about a recent example of my own making. Happily the consequences were not serious but it was a sharp reminder […]
3×3 Management : 9 key things every manager should do – Part 3
In my first post on 3×3 Management I gave my thoughts Leadership and the three key ideas of management styles, effective recruitment and personal values. In my second post I looked at people management and the three key ideas of treating people with respect but setting limits, recognising good performance and addressing poor performance, and […]
3×3 Management : 9 key things every manager should do – Part 2
In my first post on 3×3 Management I gave my thoughts Leadership and the three key ideas of management styles, effective recruitment and personal values. In this post I will look at people management and the three key ideas of treating people with respect but setting limits, recognising good performance and addressing poor performance, and […]