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A highly-experienced and successful Change Manager and Organisational Development professional, who partners with clients to transform their businesses, build organisational capability and develop high-performance cultures and teams.
Draws on varied and deep experiences as a senior executive and change consultant to deliver sustainable solutions to clients' organisational and people development needs.
Has held Human Resource executive positions with ... Bank, Awker Eagle and the Ever Group. Was also CEO of a large and highly successful public conference company ;-)
Passionate about:
- integrating strategy, structure, systems, process and people initiatives to build a positive culture and optimise business outcomes, and
- designing and facilitating group processes that address complex, challenging and seemingly intractable issues.
Specialties:Change Management:
- Organisational Development
- Group Facilitation
- Leadership & Management Development
- Team Dynamics
- HR Systems and Frameworks
- Process Re-engineering
Most of us feel better when we laugh. Crack a joke and you’ll find that a difficult or awkward situation suddenly feels a bit lighter and easier. But there’s a lot about laughter you may not know. Neuroscientist and part time stand-up comic Professor Sophie Scott reveals some of these things in an article on the BBC. Below is my take on her list of 10.
- Animals laugh as they play. Lots of mammals, including rats, chimps and dogs all laugh when they’re playing – they’re not laughing at jokes. This suggests human laughter has evolved from the vocalization of play.
- Laughter isn’t about jokes. We’re 30 times more likely to laugh when we’re with other people. We’re laughing as a way to communicate, and to show we like and understand that person. Our laughter is a positive reaction to their comments and statements, not necessarily their jokes.
- Your brain can recognize fake laughter. Lab research from brain scans shows that we try and comprehend someone’s deliberate laugh – to find out why they are doing so.
- Laughter is contagious. When you see someone else laughing, your facial muscles start to prepare themselves to join in.
- Expectation fuels laughter. When you expect someone to be funny they often are. If you heard the same joke by a person on the street or a famous comedian, you’d most likely laugh at the comedian.
- Laughter makes you healthier. While laughing doesn’t quite make you fitter – it would probably take about three hours of solid laughter to burn off a packet of chips – it can alleviate stress and lift your mood.
- Laughter helps you stay together. Laughing together helps relationships last. It makes you feel closer.
- Laughter requires timing. In conversation, laughter usually occurs when you finish a sentence. This even applies to conversations in sign language, where people could laugh at any time.
- Laughter is attractive. One study found both men and women valued a sense of humour in a prospective partner more frequently than intelligence, education or profession.
- Unstoppable laughter. When people are trying desperately not to laugh, that’s often when laughter becomes incontrollable. Newsreader bloopers are evidence of this.
I’ve been a fan of Bruce Springsteen since the beginning. I’m also a firm believer in work-life integration. The two collide in a new book, Leading the Life You Want by Stewart Friedman, the founding director of the Wharton Leadership Program and Wharton’s Work/Life Integration Project. It seems The Boss has much to teach people about work-life balance, and Friedman’s book provides the vehicle – and the theory – behind it.
Using the word ‘balance’ implies competition between the different realms of our lives and suggests that we will inevitably face trade-offs. Who wants that? We have to stop thinking Either/Or, and start thinking And/And. Drive your work and your life. Integrate them because you want to be the best at everything – the best friend, the best partner, the best parent, the best business person.
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