Every New Year brings challenges and choices. Straight Talk brings some of its own. The biggest challenge is often whether you will speak up at all. 

How would it be if you could help people around you feel good, important, appreciated and respected?These are some of the words most consistently used in feedback on a listening exercise in Straight Talk training.

From ancient philosophers to modern scholars and consultants, we have been obsessed with finding out what makes the extraordinary leaders who generate the forces that change the world.

If you want to improve the quality of conversations in which you are trying to exert influence or be persuasive, start by working on the way you handle facts.

The more things change...

It may seem strange to suggest that we can learn as much about how to handle change from a 15th century political philosopher as we can from a Harvard Professor of leadership.

We are expected to delight customers, create harmony in multi-cultural teams, survive through continuous change and play many different roles in the many corners of our matrix organisations.

It never ceases to amaze me that so few people have the ability to give effective feedback. We might think it is effective but how often does it sound like this? 

The more things change; the more they stay the same. By any standards, organisations have changed enormously over the past decades. 

It's important that employees trust their leaders. It's best when there is trust between suppliers and their clients. The happiest and most productive teams are those in which people trust their colleagues.