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Blog
A personal journey from council officer to supplier, via the MHCLG Local Digital team
In late June and early July 2018, I was racing between London, Cardiff and Birmingham, helping Linda O’Halloran, Egle Uzkaraityte, Adam Thoulass and our colleagues in the embryonic MHCLG Local...
By: 
Knowledge Hub Team
Last updated:  24 Jul 2020
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Blog
A faint air of menace 2
We need to talk about how we talk about Black Lives Matter (BLM) in the work place because the subject still has a faint air of menace about it. If people are reluctant to talk about diversity...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  22 Jul 2020
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Blog
Do you read the instructions?
You might be someone who jumps right in and gets stuck in there and learns by winging it. Or you might be a little more cautious and assess all the bits and pieces first and then get going,...
By: 
Knowledge Hub Team
Last updated:  15 Jul 2020
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Blog
Alien Encounter 
If aliens from a distant and previously unknown planet landed seeking asylum and only to be allowed to integrate into society, HR would have no problem adapting equality and diversity policies...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  09 Jul 2020
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Blog
Heated arguments in the Team Meeting
To anyone observing it was a very heated argument. One member of the team was criticising another and not holding back. The other responded with a few well chosen remarks of their own. Voices...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  13 Aug 2020
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Blog
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Time travel doesn’t require a time machine. You can’t go forwards into the future only backwards into the past. Time travel is not open to everyone but every generation has individuals who...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  05 Jul 2020
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Blog
Champions League 
Black Lives Matter is making us rethink our approach to Equality. Most organisations have management steering groups to monitor their equality strategies and action plans. But the agendas lack...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  01 Jul 2020
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Blog
Hot Hand
An expression in basketball to describe a player on a hot scoring streak who feels and appears unable to miss. But for every up side there is a downside,  the top striker who just can’t score,...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  30 Jun 2020
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Blog
Don’t look to football managers for best practice 
Is managing a football club so different to being a senior manager in a Local Authority?Both are challenged to motivate talented individuals. Both have a vision and a plan for the future whilst...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  27 Jun 2020
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Blog
I look to football managers for lessons in management 
Football managers like Jurgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho and from a previous generation Alex  Ferguson and Brian Clough are stand out managers with impressive track records. They are extreme...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  26 Jun 2020
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Blog
Playing up and Playing down 
Sometimes you have to play up and sometimes play down your abilities. The scene is a golf club, the context a new manager trying to break into a close knit group of colleagues , the method,...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  14 Jun 2020
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Blog
Big and Scary 
It’s big and it’s scary, it’s in the room and ignoring it won’t make it go away. An Elephant in the Room is an expression to describe a big topic everyone is ignoring, pretending it...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  13 Jun 2020
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Blog
More than just a soft machine 
I WAS AT ONE TIME THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF RESOURCES IN A LARGE COMPLEX ORGANISATION. FINANCE, IT, PERSONNEL AND TRAINING FELL WITHIN MY REMIT. THIS LINE MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENT REFLECTED THE...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  10 Jun 2020
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Blog
It doesn’t help that people really don’t like HR.
  Human Resource staff make people behave and they don’t like it. They are the ones that tell you that even if you think the jokes are funny, you still can’t tell sexist, racist or homophobic...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  09 Jun 2020
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Blog
Sometimes it takes a crisis
When this pandemic is over you will know a lot more about your staff/ managers . A crisis brings out the strength in some and the weaknesses in others. It will not necessarily have been the...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  09 Jun 2020
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Blog
The Art of Winging It
Before you know what you are doing you’re expected to know what you are doing, so you have no choice but to wing it. It happened to me. As part of a cost cutting senior management restructuring...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  05 Jun 2020
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Blog
Management anyone can do it-not
The interesting thing about management is that pretty much everyone thinks they could do it and do it better. It’s not rocket science. That is why so many people think they understand it. But...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  22 May 2020
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Blog
Residential Care is Killing Older People 
  What has the coronavirus crisis told us about residential care? It has told us that residential care puts older people at far greater risk, which is ironic since the biggest reason for...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  18 May 2020
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Blog
What’s  different about leadership in a crisis as opposed to any other time ?
The characteristics of effective leadership are the same in normal times as they are during a crisis. The difference is that during a crisis there is a temptation for leaders to do too much, to...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  14 May 2020
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Blog
Rejuvenating the Talent Pool
    Even a successful management team needs their talent pool rejuvenated at regular intervals. Move too slowly and inevitably performance declines . Move too fast and the instability and...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  13 May 2020
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Blog
Do your members know what they need to know?
Why group communications matter Your members might benefit from regular communications from you that allows them to develop useful habits about how they visit and participate in the...
By: 
Knowledge Hub Team
Last updated:  12 May 2020
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Blog
Can Tony Soprano make you a better manager
 Tony Soprano has never read a management book. Yet he successfully manages a diverse workforce in a very competitive and treacherous business environment. Tony doesn’t work long...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  08 Jul 2020
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Blog
The Poor Make Bad Choices
The poor make bad choices the first being their parents, the second being where they were born.    www.blairmcpherson.co.uk 
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  09 May 2020
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Blog
The Balloon Debate
Did you ever have a balloon debate at school? One day my younger brother came home from primary school and as we sat round the tea table told us that he had won the ballon debate. This was a...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  06 May 2020
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Blog
Make HR your Friend 
  The best advice I could give any one moving into their first management post.  There are lots of articles about why people hate HR and very few on why you should befriend at least...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  28 Apr 2020
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Blog
Management shouldn’t be about shouting from the sidelines
In this case the sidelines could be the chief executive’s blog, the senior managers road show or even the team meeting. There is getting your instructions across, vocal encouragement and...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  27 Apr 2020
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Blog
The difference between managers and leaders.
One asks permission the other seeks forgiveness. 
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  25 Apr 2020
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Blog
The Manager’s Lucky Socks 
 When good fails to turn into great. When the sum of the parts isn’t greater than the whole. When a talented senior management team never quiet reaches the heights expected. Then people look...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  20 Apr 2020
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Blog
How much should governments tell their populations
The governments of the world conspire to keep the news of the end of the world from their populations. This is the premise of a Hollywood disaster movie. Fear of panic , mass hysteria and...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  16 Apr 2020
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Blog
Working together to beat COVID-19
Signposting you to COVID-19 Groups Here's a list of some of the great groups and networks actively leading the fight right now. Many of these members are making a valuable contribution...
By: 
Knowledge Hub Team
Last updated:  16 Apr 2020
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Blog
Talent v Character
 What’s surprises me is that managers so readily recruit on talent and then spend all their time addressing defects in the individuals character when it is so much easier to coach skills and ...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  14 Apr 2020
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Blog
Are people looking at a lot more porn during the lockdown? 
Are people looking at a lot more pornography during the lockdown  or our providers just assuming they want to? Never mind bored  house wives, it’s sexy students and shameless girls that ...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  11 Apr 2020
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Blog
Humans are irrational but capable of behaving rationally
  What has this Pandemic told us about how people behave in a crisis and how the authorities should manage that behaviour. Panic buying causing unnecessary shortages, having a big last...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  08 Apr 2020
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Blog
10 Things you should never say to HR 
If HR staff had thought bubbles above their head when in conversation with managers then you would be able to see when they were thinking ,” you really shouldn’t be telling me this”.  1)...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  31 Mar 2020
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Blog
Will Convid finally break the health and social care barrier?
If it’s no longer about money, about budget cuts or being more efficient. If it’s about being practice led rather than finance driven, if it’s about effectiveness rather than cost then one...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  23 Mar 2020
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Blog
Crisis management
A crisis is exciting. Crisis management is a series of boring meetings to plan  for something that may never happen. There are so many immediate and obvious challenges facing an organisation...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  21 Mar 2020
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Blog
5 tips to work from home more effectively
Here at Placecube, Knowledge Hub's parent company, working from home is the way we do things everyday. Being a digital company, we make use of a range of collaboration tools, including...
By: 
Knowledge Hub Team
Last updated:  13 Mar 2020
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Blog
Toughest ever Person Specification 
Statement by leader of the council in intro to top job advert. First sentence.  What skill, wizardry and determined delivery could you add to iconic Cambridge, our international city of...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  12 Mar 2020
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Blog
A Tiger Team
We hacked the system to show how vulnerable it was to hackers. We broke into the gallery and removed the priceless art work to show how weak the security was. We inserted an operative to show...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  10 Mar 2020
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Blog
How Bond villains convey malevolence 
  Senior managers need the ability to hold an audience, to dominate a room, to make people feel comfortable, as opposed to uncomfortable,in their presence. It’s a skill and like any...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  09 Mar 2020
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Blog
Leavism
  How do you know your organisation’s absence management strategy is working? You might assume it was a reduction in absenteeism but this might be masking a problem with leavism. The issue of...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  06 Mar 2020
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Blog
Adult Social Care Client Level Data 
Every year there is a large demand for additions to the annual aggregate adult social care (ASC) data collections, while there are typically no areas identified for reduction. The resulting...
By: 
Philippa Lynch
Last updated:  06 Mar 2020
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Blog
The need for curiosity 
I have never seen it written into a management JD or identified as an essential requirement in a person specification but recent events have confirmed the need for curiosity amongst senior...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  02 Mar 2020
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Blog
Questions 
The best don’t know all the answers but they know the right questions to ask. Blair Mcpherson www.blairmcpherson.co.uk 
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  01 Mar 2020
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Blog
Advancing Practice in Knowledge and Organisation Learning
At this month’s Henley Forum 20th Anniversary Conference, Knowledge Hub received the Highly Commended Award for Advancing Practice in Knowledge and Organisation Learning. You can check out the...
By: 
Knowledge Hub Team
Last updated:  26 Feb 2020
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Blog
Gaming the System
Not all managers play by rules. The recruitment procedures are designed to ensure candidates are not discriminated against and managers can’t slot in their favourites. The process is designed...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  24 Feb 2020
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Blog
Frank Sinatra, Mr Teflon and the Professor
They use to call him Frank Sinatra because he always did it his way. Trying to explain the importance of following the correct procedures whether that be in recruitment, tackling absenteeism or...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  18 Feb 2020
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Blog
Morse v Clouseau
Under what circumstances is it ok for HR to go the full Morse on an anonymous letter and how do you ensure clumsy attempts to identify the culprit don’t come over all Inspector Clouseau ...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  12 Feb 2020
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Blog
Not the best judge
At university I had a lecture who supervised one of my placements and believed students were a good judge of their own performance. I was tipped off in advance by a student in the year above so...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  12 Feb 2020
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Blog
Winning 
It’s brutal, wrong and dangerous. It’s cheating but if you can get away with it, bending the rules is all part of the game. This is not new no but it’s is a new and disturbing low.   Blair...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  12 Feb 2020
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Blog
Have we become a society of people too easily offended?
Here’s some advice I read in the news paper recently. “ Don’t quote The Office without explaining the context”. From my recent experience even providing the context won’t stop some people being...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  03 Feb 2020
1
Blog
Support with year two Local Child Poverty Action Reports
There’s been a definite – and very welcome - spike in the number of inquiries I’ve received from local child poverty leads over the last few weeks. Although your work to tackle child poverty...
By: 
Hanna McCulloch
Last updated:  31 Jan 2020
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Blog
Rogue Monkey
“ If you want to change things you sometimes have to disrupt things.” Dame Sue Campbell Director of Women’s Football at the FA. (Apparently referred to by some in the FA as Rogue Monkey!). ...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  05 Feb 2020
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Blog
The Oxymoron Manager
We need to be bold whilst at the same time not taking unnecessary risks, we need to be financially prudent but invest to make the most of technological but not see it as the solution to...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  28 Jan 2020
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Blog
From Humiliating to Surviving and Thriving
  I once played in a football team that got beaten 15-1. What made it worse was it was only 2-1 at half time. It was a capitulation and a humiliation. Our goal keepers confidence was...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  27 Jan 2020
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Blog
Hire and Fire with Impunity
In 2011 the Harvard Business Review published the findings of 10 years research into management effectiveness. The headlines read, USA managers are the best , and as is so often the case ...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  14 Jan 2020
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Blog
Gavin and Stacy
Taking words out of context and simply banning them as offensive does not take forward the battle for greater awareness and sensitivity in the cause of equality and diversity. If you were in...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  12 Jan 2020
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Blog
How to start a difficult conversation 
The person you are going to talk to isn’t going to like what you have to say. They are going to take it personally. You are going to challenge them and their reaction may be defensive,...
By: 
Blair McPherson
Last updated:  13 Jan 2020
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Blog
Happiness - a review of the decade
As we reach the end of the second decade of the 20th Century, it seems a good time to look back at what has happened in that time in relation to happiness, resilience and wellbeing.  ...
By: 
Adrian Barker
Last updated:  31 Dec 2019
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Blog
Tinsel, trends and sparkling searches...
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…..  enough of all that. Everyone loves something new and we have a few new prezzies for you on Knowledge Hub. Let’s start with the new...
By: 
Knowledge Hub Team
Last updated:  20 Dec 2019
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