Personal development Resources
Pick your HR books
Closing the Gap
Author: Teresa
Boughey
Publisher: Rethink
Press
Price: £14.99
Best
of
This book explores how making
diversity sustainable in business
requires a holistic approach. A shift in
mindset, a redesign of organisational
culture, and a change in leadership
behaviour is needed, says Boughey.
Aimed at business leaders and HR
professionals, her five-step
methodology shows a way forward on
diversity and inclusion she hopes will
be comprehensive and achievable.
Leading for
Organisational
Change
Author: Jennifer
Emery
Publisher: John
Wiley & Sons
Price: £23.99
Leading for Organisational Change
pulls together thinking from
neuroscience, psychology, business,
and the author’s own experience of
leading change-centred projects. It
shows how a common purpose and
using powerful communication can
assist in navigating stressful periods of
change. Emery presents seven key
themes: belonging, evolution,
confidence, agility, understanding,
simplicity and energy.
The Sponsor
Effect
Author: Sylvia Ann
Hewlett
Publisher: Harvard
Business Review
Press
Price: £22.77
According to Hewlett’s research senior
executives who sponsor rising talent
are 53% more likely to be promoted
than those who don’t. Similarly,
middle-level managers who have
protégés are 167% more likely to be
given stretch assignments.
Combining data and interviews with
companies such as Unilever, Aetna,
Blizzard Entertainment and EY, The
Sponsor Effect provides guidance on
how to become a successful sponsor.
The Leader’s
Guide to Impact
Authors: Mandy Flint
and Elisabet
Vinberg Hearn
Publisher: FT
Publishing International
Price: £14.99
With four in 10 UK employees
unhappy with quality of leadership it’s
clear not all leaders are having the
right impact. Flint and Vinberg Hearn
explain why and how to achieve this.
They provide strategies and tools that
leaders can use to manage their
impact on different stakeholders –
employees, peers, the board – as well
as external stakeholders such as the
press and social media.
The Art of
Conversation
Author: Judy Apps
Publisher: Capstone
Price: £10.99
The Art of
Conversation shows readers how to
become nuanced conversationalists.
Apps reveals how to tap into our full
conversational potential by building
closer relationships, overcoming
awkwardness, and operating from
intuition rather than self-consciousness
and control. She uses her experiences
coaching people from all walks of life,
including corporate leaders,
politicians, journalists and others
wanting to connect with influence.
In this series of
wellbeing columns,
KAREN BEAVEN offers
advice to others in HR
When you’re getting ready
for work in the morning does
it sometimes feel like you’re
getting ready for battle?
Sometimes it can even feel like you’re fi ghting more
than one battle at once. We say things like: ‘It’s ok, I
like a good challenge’. But do we really?
Being in a permanent state of battle is exhausting.
You need to be bringing energy towards you if you
want to improve your self-care. So if it feels like you’re
fi ghting multiple battles you’ll have multiple sources of
energy drain taking you further away from a point of
being happy, healthy and stress-free.
For that reason not all battles are worth fi ghting.
But you know this, and maybe just need a reminder
that you have a choice here. Maybe you feel
like you need someone to give you permission
to stop fi ghting. If so I’m giving you that permission
right now. It’s OK to stop and sometimes it
actually takes more strength and a bigger person
to do that.
But am I suggesting you quit fi ghting altogether? Hell
no. What we’re talking about is choosing the battles
worth fi ghting so you’re in a position to be strong
enough to win them. It’s about being strong enough to
walk away from the battles that will only ever drain your
energy with no positive outcome.
So here’s what we’re going to do. This is something
that I call my ‘is it worth the fi ght?’ test.
Firstly, I want you to consciously list all of the battles
it feels like you’re having at the moment. Then we’re
going to put them through the ‘is it worth the fi ght?’ test
and if they pass you stick with them. If they don’t you
need to fi nd a way to let them go, or back down on
them at least for the moment.
Remember the point of this is helping you to
channel your energy into the right places and remove
scenarios that drain you and chip away at your
confi dence and strength.
So here’s the test. For each battle ask
yourself the following:
Are you really prepared to back yourself in this
scenario? By that I mean if you get a knockback
would you push back just as strongly? Would you put
your job on the line for it?
56 HR June 2019 hrmagazine.co.uk
/hrmagazine.co.uk