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Discover and debate opinions about what really matters in organisations.

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Change
Innovation & Creativity
Leadership
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Global leadership insights eBook

This free eBook by Impact reveals the main issues and learnings from a survey of over 500 global leaders. Find out how to build human-centred cultures and practices that prioritise people and make a...

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Leadership
Sustainable Innovation
Talent

Purpose: A key driver of employee engagement

How much potential are we wasting? Research shows that only 23% of people are actively engaged at work. With more than three quarters of the workforce disengaged, this is a huge missed opportunity...

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Teams

Employee experience

Why employee engagement is one of the most undervalued drivers of lasting change. When it comes to digital transformation, a step-change in focus on customer experience is commonly seen to be one of...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

Q not A

A four-year-old girl will ask almost 390 questions a day. Eventually these numbers dwindle as she ages, in part because they don’t include the questions she mutters to herself while submerged in...

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Adventure
Sustainable Innovation

The times have begun to change!

The first update on our three year project to research and educate on the global problem of plastic pollution in our oceans. Early in January 2017, after many weeks of preparation and getting Sula...

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Adventure
Wellbeing & Personal Development

Mount Kilimanjaro - my personal classroom

‘This mountain reminds me that I am made of steel! ’ said an MBA student, fresh off the summit of Kilimanjaro. Another student wrote to me the following week: ‘I’ve wanted to do humanitarian work for...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

Roots or wings

Roots and Wings. Hopefully we are cultivating or challenging one or the other at any particular time. We see it in the news and in our own lives. Obama’s parting comment to African leaders was that...

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Change
Leadership

Living in a time of 'great winds' of change

This is an edited excerpt from the book "Future Fit" by Giles Hutchins, published by the Future Fit Leadership Academy. An old Chinese proverb says, "In times of great winds, some build bunkers...

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Sustainable Innovation

It's 'just business' but not as we know it

I first met David Batstone when he was speaking at the FRED leadership conference in Denver in 2015. It was clear to me then that we were both trying to make a positive change in the world by applying...

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Leadership

Just tell me what to do

We live in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times, but have you actually acknowledged this out loud or in your thoughts? Has one of your direct reports voiced this to you? We like a...

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Emerging Talent
Innovation & Creativity

Why learning should be part of SMEs culture

As Millennials form a bigger part of our workforce and SMEs an increasing role in the labour market, it is imperative that businesses consider how to retain ‘early careers’ talent by embracing a...

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Change

New year, new you?

We all do it. We aim so high at the beginning of the year. We set those personal and professional goals and feel that this time we’ll really keep the momentum going. Then, come February, we’re back to...

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Leadership

The trust mandate for future leaders

Every year the PR giant Edelman publishes a global survey on one issue - trust. It considers the levels of trust we have in our public institutions, technical experts, each other - and our business...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

Do nothing - perfectly

That was an instruction at a recent Satipatthana meditation course I attended recently. 8 days of sitting on a meditation cushion, doing nothing but observing one’s sensations with equanimity. To ‘do...

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Change
Sustainable Innovation

Sustainable development is good for UK business

Businesses unite in a bid to make the UK economy ‘fit for the future’ by backing sustainable development Earlier this week Impact along with 80 other organisations united to call on the Government to...

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Change

What are you playing at?

Funny how something as playful as play can have negative connotations. On one hand, when we play we express our joyfulness, imagination and freedom. In other contexts, we can be seen as self-indulgent...

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Talent

7 ways to compete with larger businesses for talent

All of our SME clients find it difficult to compete with larger businesses for talent. Whether it’s attracting graduates out of university or retaining mid-level managers, it’s a challenge for smaller...

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Change
Sustainable Innovation

Business and the Sustainable Development Goals: what do they mean for you?

Francesca Burton-Project Manager, International Development Policy Unit, WWF-UK In September 2015 the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - a new...

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Change
Sustainable Innovation

The times they are a changin'

A three year project to research and educate on the global problem of plastic pollution in our oceans. The last time we took our yacht Sula offshore sailing was in 2008. The previous year we had been...

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Adventure

Dealing with the unexpected

For the past few years I have been competing each summer at various mountain bike orienteering events. These can vary from UK based events to packing my bike and flying overseas to some of the larger...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

What's your motivation?

I have always loved stories and characters. To me, these offer a fantastic insight into the drivers and motivators that influence who we are and how we interact with the world. In my forthcoming book...

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Leadership

Power within the organisation

What are we really struggling for? Growing within the organisation often means to acquire more power. Power within the organisation can often represent an influence tool, a career indicator, a...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

Top tips for getting unstuck

I have an oddity. Or I guess, I am an oddity. I love change. I love new things. I love to change things up a bit just for the heck of it. This could be as simple as moving my office around or as major...

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Change

Is it the end of work as we know it?

It’s the end of work as we know it. Gone are the days when having a job meant “doing your job.” No longer can anyone anywhere expect the future of work to be the same as it was in the past. Innovation...

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Change

The organisation is a purposeful living system

We are in the midst of a metamorphic period of change unlike anything the world has seen since the Late Middle Ages. With “meta” (meaning “form”) and “morph” (meaning “change”), the word suggests the...

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Emerging Talent
Talent

The dangers of generational stereotyping

Let’s stop stereotyping whole generations of people and look more closely at the similarities and differences that make us all who we are. Human beings love to categorise things. It is core to the way...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

Laughter is the best medicine

Laughter Yoga started in 1995 by Dr Madan Kataria in a park in Mumbai with just five participants. Today there are over 10,000 laughter clubs in 76 different countries – just showing the need to laugh...

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Leadership

The power of story

‘A Story is like the water you heat for your bath. It takes messages between the fire and your skin. It lets them meet and it cleans you.” - Rumi, StoryWater. As a storytelling expert, I live for...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

Company boredom training

Interestingly, there is this multinational company whose training explicitly explores boredom. They start with the scenario: “You are at work. You have had no break. What you are doing seems...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

The bed is back in business

The bed is on the agenda. Opinion leaders are encouraging you and your organisation to pay attention to your bed behaviour, your ‘sleep hygiene’. It was certainly a topic of conversation with a group...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

Speaking from solid ground

How to Give a Speech How do we create excellent communication? How do we stand up and speak with confidence and credibility? It is a question many of us ask in haste, as the moment for making a speech...

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Change

Can you learn from the safety zone?

Now in its fourth year, Learnfest has taught us that learning, like achieving, is done best when you’re outside your normal environment and comfort zone. The comfort zone, as defined by Lifehacker...

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Change
Wellbeing & Personal Development

The first hour - something better than coffee

I recently read an intriguing article titled, " How 7 Female Leaders Spend their First Hour at Work ". Initially I was skeptical that reading this would do to me the things it advertised. Things like...

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Wellbeing & Personal Development

Happiness at work

Ask most managers what their top priorities are for their direct reports and I would be hugely surprised if the word ‘happiness’ appeared anywhere on a list littered with words like ‘productivity’,...

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Innovation & Creativity

If you haven't found your passion yet

Jamie Catto - Creator, Producer/Director of the multi-award winning global 1 Giant Leap films and albums and founder member of Faithless is now leading uniquely transformative workshops and one-on-one...

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Leadership

6 Things to Look for in Leadership Courses

Impact's Senior Consultant, Richard Little, shares his six top tips on how to choose the right leadership courses. As global leadership development experts we meet managers at every career point, from...

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Innovation & Creativity

The alchemic learning test

Planning a learning intervention? Great! But is it “alchemic”? No idea what we mean? Read Senior Consultant Liz Wilson’s piece on alchemic learning here . You can run your learning intervention...

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Sustainable Innovation

Sustainable Development Goals

Impact’s Community Partnerships Manager Jo Appleby discusses the UN SDGs and what they mean for people and businesses everywhere. Late last year I attended an event on ‘How to embed the Sustainable...

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