My Blog

This blog is for me, it’s my sketch pad where I think things through and work things out. Having worked ‘stuff’ out I think it’s good to declare it, so I am sending it to you. Hopefully you will also find it useful.

Latest Posts

Construction industry best seller

22nd October 2014

What constitutes a ‘best selling’ book in the construction industry? If my intent is to share what I have learned and my ideas rather than make money from my books, and I have given away 1,500 copies of my first co-authored book, “21st Century People Leadership”, is that a ‘best seller’? When a busy director…

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Difficult work

2nd October 2014

People are involved in difficult work. Often it has not been done before, it’s a permanent prototype, possibly never to be repeated. It might be building the tallest tower, slotting a tunnel under the capital city, decommissioning a nuclear power station, building a bridge over a busy river, maintaining critical water infrastructure or electrifying the…

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Celebrating 13 years in business

31st July 2014

Today I am celebrating 13 years running and growing my own business, DSA Building Performance Ltd. Reflecting back these are my top 5 most enjoyable achievements: 5 – Working with Tony Blanch, Costain’s Group Business Improvement Director and his team for six years on their “hugely successful” Implementing Best Practice programme and then a few…

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Connected with Rob Dalton

30th July 2014

Rob has just accepted my invitation to connect. He is my 500th connection on LinkedIn. Getting to 500 connections was a target I set myself at the beginning of this month – check out The LinkedIn Leader for my rationale http://dsabuilding.co.uk/linkedin-leader/ Rob and I first met earlier this year in a collaboration workshop I facilitated…

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Dialogue v.s debate?

22nd July 2014

Debate is what you see in the House of Commons. There is no listening. Each side is set on proving they are right and the other side is wrong. The side with the most power wins, irrespective of the merits of its argument. The origin of the word debate is to beat down. The route…

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A note to myself

23rd May 2014

Life is a conversation. All progress, innovation, value etc starts with a conversation. If the conversation is low grade then there is little prospect of real progress. If the conversation is nonexistent (rushing around like a headless chicken, fighting fires, got no time to think and talk) then it’s a lonely, stressful place and progress…

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Two brains are better than one

25th July 2013

Could you do with having a second brain to help you think something through and progress towards your desired result? A coach lends a second brain to help their client succeed. When I started my Masters back in October 12 I was required to log 90 hours of one to one coaching so I sent…

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“I feel like sacking the next person who complains about communication…”

8th March 2013

Dave (Coach) – what’s your business result? Len (Client) – morale is poor and I have tried everything but everyone keeps complaining about lack of communication. Dave – if you could improve communication what would that get you? Len – it would be a better atmosphere, I’m sure our customers are picking up on it,…

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