Most people do not read minutes particularly carefully. They were either at the meeting and so only need a quick reminder of the discussions and action points or they were not there and therefore just need an overview and, once again, action points. So it is essential that the minutes can be skim-read and understood at first reading. Here are the top 10 tips to make your minutes understandable:
Negotiating skills come into play whenever we are contact with others, whether professionally, personally or socially. Improving these skills allows us to be at our best in order to achieve successful mutual outcomes.
The three main keys to success are effective handling of ourselves, handling of others and dealing with the problem.
Let's look at each of these in turn:
1. Effective handling of ourselves
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In various articles over the last few months, I have mentioned mental rehearsal. Here are some more details about this and how to practise it. As Gandhi once said: ‘In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.’
The principles involved are very straightforward:
A review of the growing importance of pre-issue steps in litigation and how the trained Legal Secretary can assist.
The famous line ‘No man is an island’ by the English poet John Donne is never more true than when working in a busy Solicitor’s office. Even the most skillful of Solicitors will rely on their support staff to ensure that they are working at the top of their game. As a trained Legal Secretary you will be in a position to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the fee earners you work for. This article is one in a series focusing on key areas of practice and the specialist skills and knowledge that will help make you indispensible.
Sometimes our self-esteem can take a bit of a dive. It is natural for it to fluctuate, but we all need a base level to get the most out of work and life generally. So, what is self-esteem and how can we boost it when we need to?
When we focus on the positive aspects of our life, we enhance our life experience and create beneficial opportunities for the future. American psychologist Martin Seligman, in his book Learned Optimism, identified certain thinking styles which influence how we feel about ourselves and the world around us.
Those who regard good things as insignificant, temporary and attributable to external factors tend to be those who regard bad things as permanent, affecting most if not all of their life. These negative attributional styles set a person up for increased anxiety and distress
Attending training courses in the current climate may not seem a high priority, but the fact is, with an alarming number of positions being amalgamated due to redundancies, and job functions becoming more blurred by the increased pressure to absorb workload, the need for those able to progress quickly is critical, and thus the need for training is, perhaps, greater than ever.
Focusing on your professional development will not only increase your skills and enhance your CV, it also demonstrates to management that you are ready, willing and able for career progression.
Do you ever do a to-do list and not achieve what’s on it? Does your to-do list just get longer and longer? Do you spend hours working out a to-do list and then not have any time to do the tasks on it? Or perhaps you’ve given up on using one altogether! Before you can plan and organise your working day, it is necessary to think of what is to be done and set up some simple drills to help you do it more effectively. So here are the top 10 tips for planning your working day.
Teams are generally made up of all sorts of different types of people with different strengths and weaknesses. When the team works in balance, each member of the team feels encouraged to contribute his or her own strengths and capabilities to the team to support it, and the individual needs of each person (as opposed to things he or she might just want!) are respected.
Whilst all individuals have similar emotional needs, for some people some of these needs rank higher than for others in the workplace. For others, various needs are met wholly or partly outside the workplace and so they are not so reliant on work to meet that need. If the respective needs in the work environment are not recognised and respected, the team is likely to become unstable.
Two of the main needs in this context are:
Do you feel you are a negotiator in your role at work? You may have answered ‘no’, however, I feel the answer is most definitely ‘YES’! Although we associate negotiating with salespeople, we are all salespeople at some time. We often have to negotiate deadlines that need changing, tasks that we can or can’t do, or responsibilities that others want us to take on. We are always negotiating. So here are the top 10 tips to help you reach ‘win-win’ situations.