Category: Career Development

What is resilience? And why it’s not just ‘manning up’!

I wanted to share my thoughts on #Resilience – I’ve heard the word mentioned a lot and it’s taken me a while to get my head around what I feel resilience means – if you are interested in my thoughts – read on:

The Oxford Dictionary describes resilience as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness”.

Many of us have grown up witnessing first-hand the very British trait of having a stiff upper lip! Often being told to ‘Not let things to get us down’, ‘pull ourselves together’ and to ‘just get on with things’! You might assume that these skills might help a person recover and get over problems quickly. However, the opposite is true for many of us.

I’ve learnt that resilience most definitely isn’t being told or telling yourself to “Man Up” – my experience has shown me it is more about habit. Habits take on average 66 days to form and this is why it can be difficult to change your ways. Some people are lucky in that they don’t form these bad habits and have something I would term “natural resilience”.

I have so far successfully used Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) to reduce my stress level/s and it has shown me that my mind had formed bad habits in the past – basically shortcuts to thinking such as “Something bad is about to happen”, “Fearing the worst” etc – if you do this a heck of a lot through the day, it is very tiring! 

By writing down my stresses and working them out I am gradually re-training my mind to practise some better habits – so rather than instantly thinking negative, I am able to think about the stress and then break it down to various elements that CBT teaches you.  I am not yet at the stage that this is a habit (Only about 40 days in) but the affects I have felt are fantastic.  If you don’t feel yourself, feel stressed and aren’t sure what is wrong, do get some professional advice and if you try CBT or Mindfulness – remember to consciously work on it for at least 66 days – this is what resilience feels like!

I have also used Strengthscope (https://redtigerconsulting.co.uk/significant-seven-strengths/) to understand my strengths to try and work out what stresses me – this has also been very useful.  One example is that because I have strong Empathy and Compassion and I am Results Focussed I can feel real emotion and understanding for people who are struggling with stress (Hence this post). What I need to do is not take too much responsibility on – just start to signpost people to the professional help they need.

Do you think you’re resilient? Or do you have some negative thinking patterns that you could do with addressing? I really can highly recommend CBT as it has already really helped me.

Finally, it’s not a quick fix, it’s something you need to work at and probably revisit throughout your life. We should all invest more time into our health and wellbeing and I’m definitely seeing the benefits in doing so. Contact me today to discuss our coaching options on paul@redtigerconsulting.co.uk

Significant Seven Strengths

As part of our new coaching service we work with the Strengthscope program. This is a strengths-based assessment tool that seeks to identify the core capabilities of employees and ensure each individual is utilising them in the correct manner and/or in the correct role, to develop both their personal performance levels and the collective output of the organisation.

Our coaches all took part in our Strengths Discovery exercise, and found out what their seven most significant strengths are…

Andy

  1. Empathy
  2. Optimism
  3. Self-confidence
  4. Creativity
  5. Critical thinking
  6. Flexibility
  7. Decisivity

“Unfortunately as with the others no real surprises…. I think it’s a good reflection of me and my behaviours, especially the decision making e.g. critical thinking, creativity and decisiveness…. My optimism strength has very much been challenged by the situation of the last 12 months and I do think I have used this a lot to help others who don’t naturally feel optimistic about the future, however uncertain that future that may be!”

Steve

  1. Relationship building
  2. Collaboration
  3. Empathy
  4. Compassion
  5. Leading
  6. Optimism
  7. Initiative

“For me I’m not sure any were a surprise – the surprises come when you look further down to those that aren’t in my top 7. All I would say is the my Significant 7 are well aligned to my ‘new’ chosen professions of Recruitment and Coaching.”

Steph

  1. Creativity
  2. Developing others
  3. Empathy
  4. Enthusiasm
  5. Leading
  6. Self-improvement
  7. Strategic mindedness

“The one that I go into overdrive on most often is enthusiasm – especially when it’s combined with creativity & strategy. But I can get so carried away with enthusiastically providing white boards, coloured pens and mind maps and being exceptionally creative – that I might not always spot that others need a slower pace, or a different style of engagement. Then I’m at risk of being frustrated and so are they. Not ideal.”

Paul

  1. Compassion
  2. Empathy
  3. Developing others
  4. Results focus
  5. Courage
  6. Collaboration
  7. Leading

“To be honest, none were a surprise, but it’s a great exercise to understand myself more not just professionally but personally too! I am using this to manage and understand my stress levels which really works. One thing I notice is as I am Results Focussed – I get stressed when I don’t have good people lined up for interviews quickly and it can play on my mind sometimes – I need to step back and just keep going, and also focus on ways to work smarter/improve our process to speed things up where possible and let go of the pressure…”

We work with clients to help them understand their key competencies, optimise these and use them to achieve their career goals and objectives.

If you’re interesting in finding out more about your key strengths and exploring career coaching we’ll be sharing more over the coming weeks.

Contact Steve Halsall on steve@redtigerconsulting.co.uk to find out more.

We have a number of new job roles: March 2021

We are really excited to share some new job opportunities:

Insight Manager (Property Landlord), London

  • Working with the development and portfolio teams to develop a commercial proposition based on data and insight.
  • Use both qualitative and quantitative research methods to generate insight that will deliver the assets business plan; drive asset performance & improve customer satisfaction.
  • Run data analysis, this will include providing strategic insight & opinions to help decisions ranging from investment to commercial support.
  • Experience of consumer research development and execution needed.

If interested, please email paul@redtigerconsulting.co.uk

Senior Insight Manager (Property Landlord), London

  • Working with the development and portfolio teams to develop a commercial proposition based around data and insight.
  • Develop and manage a research programme that will deliver a clear vision and proposition for the repurposed assets.
  • Need experience in consumer research development and execution.
  • Wide range of experience with a variety of data sets and research methodologies (both qualitative and quantitative) driving actionable insight.
  • Need strong communication skills and ability to liaise at all levels.

If interested, please email steve@redtigerconsulting.co.uk

Portfolio Insight Analyst ~ Client-side, Field Based (head office in SW one a month)

  • Develop sales and margin forecasts to enable robust investment recommendations and decisions.
  • Includes Location planning within the role.
  • Help maintain network plans, taking account of changing consumer behaviours and expectations, whilst providing achievable targets for potential acquisition and financially viable opportunities.
  • Prepare impact assessments of future competitor store openings to inform commercial and marketing decisions on nearby branches.
  • Need a strong understanding of spatial analysis methods (e.g. Gravity Models).

If interested, please email paul@redtigerconsulting.co.uk

Retail Consultant, Flexible (UK) with travel to London 2x a month post-COVID

  • Great opportunity to progress your career in a well-respected and growing team.
  • Opportunity to work with a variety of clients.
  • Must have location planning and data analysis experience – ESRI and/or Alteryx skills are a bonus.
  • Opportunity to learn or progress technical skills like Python.

If interested, please email paul@redtigerconsulting.co.uk

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

The life of an Apprentice

It’s now been 5 months since I started at Red Tiger and to celebrate National Apprentice Week, I thought I’d share an update with you on my progress so far. Even though the majority of these months I have been working remotely at home, I have still learnt so much and thoroughly enjoy my role at Red Tiger. Obviously, in an ideal situation, being in the office would have been much easier for me to settle in and develop my skills, however the team have been brilliant at keeping me on track, training me in new areas and ensuring I don’t feel too isolated.

Before starting my apprenticeship, I was an A-level student at Runshaw college, studying Geography, Business and English Language. After my second year coming to an abrupt end in March of 2020, I received my results in August and started at Red Tiger in September.

Why I chose an apprenticeship…

Despite always being quite academic, I’ve always known that University wasn’t the right path for me, however I still wanted to get some qualifications after finishing college. For me, I didn’t want to go straight into a regular job, however I still wanted the aspect of learning within my role and to gain experience, as well as gaining a qualification. After looking into the different options, I decided that going into an apprenticeship was the perfect balance of work experience and learning new qualifications that I was looking for.

My monthly responsibilities…

My usual roles include creating and posting social media posts, updating the customer database, and responding to emails and taking bookings for our excel courses. As well as this I sometimes help out with recruitment, take minutes during meetings and write blogs, so have gained experience within ‘WordPress’. As I’m working remotely, I have regular calls with the team, including ‘catch-up’ calls and ‘operations meetings’ with Paul and Steve, and ‘marketing plan and strategy’ calls with Ruth. However, as well as the work with Red Tiger, I also receive monthly assignments from my college- usually linking to an aspect of my job- which I then have monthly review calls about with my mentor, Anna. I usually complete these assignments within work hours (Thursday & Friday afternoons), so I’m given plenty of time to balance college work as well as my jobs within Red Tiger.

How my mentor helps…

My mentor at Runshaw is great at explaining the individual units and learning outcomes that I have to complete, as well as giving me productive feedback once submitted. I get assignments every 4 weeks, where me and Anna have a call and she thoroughly explains the areas of which I’m writing about and what range to include. Every 8 weeks, we have a progress review, where me, Anna and Paul have a meeting to discuss my progress and how I’m finding my role. For me, these calls help me stay focused on my learning and help me reflect on what I’ve learnt so far in my role.

Over the past 5 months, I feel I’ve become much more confident in my role and responsibilities, and have gained a range of knowledge and skills throughout. I’m excited to continue in my job and develop my skillset, as well as hopefully being back in the office!

Photo by Vlada Karpovich from Pexels

Our Objectives for 2021

We all set ourselves objectives for the coming year and will be revisiting these throughout the year, to make us each accountable and to track our progress.

Steve’s Objectives

  1. Book week (every week) – I will be reading a range of both fiction and non-fiction books this year with the objective of at least 52 books read in 2021.  Any recommendations are welcome.
  2. Look smart, feel smart – I have not been making the effort every day during lockdown 2020 to look and feel the part, particularly during the working week.  Now my old t-shirts and scruffy hoodies are banished from my workwear wardrobe as I adopt a smart casual ‘Pep Guardiola’ look for my working days (well that was my justification on spending money in the January sales!).
  3. Write a book – I will write it, topic to be confirmed, whether I can publish it will be a different story but I will write one in 2021.
  4. Do a podcast – Some claim Podcasts are falling out of favour due to reduced time commuting but my podcast consumption has only increased in 2020.   I’m late to the party but I will jump on this particular bandwagon.
  5. Tell (more of) the world about how Red Tiger Coaching can really help individuals achieve their business goals and see that come to fruition with more tangible testimonials on the value we provide.
  6. Go to a live gig (again) – Surely the re-scheduled, re-scheduled gigs that were originally planned for 2020 will happen later this year?!
  7. Sit at a bar and chat with friends – says it all really.  Value the small liberties!
  8. Learn how to SUP (that’s Stand Up Paddleboard) – I tried, and failed, on Anglesey in the summer – I’m ready to give it another go once we get to warmer weather (and when I have lost enough weight to be able to get into my wet suit!).
  9. Spend more quality time with my kids – My kids are growing up so fast that before you know it they will be adults.  This time is going in an instant and I need to be more present (particularly away from other distractions like phone!) if I am to encourage them to do the same.
  10. Feel the warmth of the sun somewhere, preferably on foreign shores.

Paul’s Objectives

  1. Spend more quality time with my daughters by finding things that they like to do (And some of which I don’t like to do) – schedule some days even if shopping and lunching with one, learn to draw with my arty daughter and go out for beers with the eldest two
  2. Go to a live gig – hopefully more than 1 – 3x festivals lined up but have my doubts they will go ahead – if they don’t make sure I go to at least one gig before end of year.
  3. Sit at a bar with the dogs and family/friends – make sure I visit the 2x Beer Dens
  4. Finish learning to swim so I am at the level required for triathlon (ie able to swim a mile front crawl without stopping)
  5. Cycle over 100 miles in one day
  6. Relax more – I felt close to burnout towards xmas – make more ME time
  7. Work more efficiently rather than longer – find ways to cut corners without losing quality, make sure effective meetings
  8. Yoga and/or meditate each day
  9. Look at news/twitter a lot less – I find myself expending too much time and energy looking at news feeds
  10. I need to be more strict with work and down-time – switch phone off, check emails less (have say 2 times a day to check emails) don’t constantly think of things to do, try not to work weekends

Meg’s Objectives

meg
  1. Coursework – Aim to motivate myself to start my college coursework earlier so I have longer to think, plan and write assignments.
  2. Go to the pub with friends – able to have a reason to look forward to the weekend.
  3. Finally get past having to wearing a mask– be able to socialise and interact with people freely.
  4. Try to take a course and learn a new skill to improve my knowledge and skillset – something to add to my CV.
  5. Holiday – get away with my friends, and with my family- in drastic need of some sun!
  6. Start more regular exercise – keep fit and healthy in 2021.
  7. Festivals! Missing the atmosphere of live music.
  8. Celebrate missed birthdays of 2020– having a big meal out with all my family to make up for lost time.
  9. Try to read more – I spend way too much time looking at my phone and laptop, I need to take a break from screens.

Ruth’s Objectives

  1. New Book – Publish my second book of poems by end of March 2021
  2. First Book – Promote My first book with some giveaways for the new year
  3. Run and walk into 2021– set my alarm and try to do some early morning walks or runs. I love that first part of the day as the sun rises but have been missing it due to over sleeping and fatigue. It’s then easy to get stuck into work, use the weather as an excuse and just not get around to getting outside!
  4. Get on top of sleep – Go to bed earlier, reintroduce positive sleep tactics and get better sleep
  5. Meditate daily – morning if possible. I use the Calm app and am currently on a 38 day streak of meditations or relaxation sessions of some sort. It really helps me with my mental health, anxiety and positivity so I want to continue with this, but try to really come to the mat with focus and calm mind.
  6. Yoga – has got me through 2020 so I really want to continue with this. It’s hard to motivate myself sometimes so I’m going to set some time in my diary with myself to get my practice done. I know how much it helps and how much I love it. I use Adrienne on YouTube and have two lovely yoga teachers who do classes on Zoom so I have no excuses!
  7. I WANT A HUG! This is one of the things I am missing most – any kind of human contact. As someone who lives alone this is really hitting me now. I don’t come from a tactile family but I really miss hugs.
  8. Read more! I seem to have lost the art of reading properly. I’ve been devouring audio books and podcasts because my brain can cope with that. But I have been really missing the pure escapism that reading books gives me.  As part of my plan to promote my book I’m building my Goodreads profile so want to start reading again. And I mean back to the 4 books a month that I used to manage! Let’s do this!
  9. Self care focus – Like Paul I felt close to burnout at the end of 2020 and had a complete downtime over Christmas. No work and little blogging. It really helped, but I need to work this properly into my day to day routines.
  10. Focus on my skin – Some of you may know I cut out Topical Steroids about two years ago. My skin has deteriorated into a flare and inflammation period since December and it’s getting worse. It’s hard to deal with, to juggle work, life admin and self care and skin care.  But I’m still healing and I need to be kind to myself and give myself a break. 2021 is going to be a year of eating better, foods for less inflammation, going vegan-ish where I can, less alcohol and self love. I will get through this.

Steph’s Objectives

  1. Health – Rest/sleep more and don’t feel guilty about it.
  2. More health – Exercise daily, in the daylight, see the outdoors – it’s too easy to stay inside and lose whole days with my head in books and spreadsheets (and on Zoom/Teams calls!)
  3. Financial – Mortgage free by end-March – cut those financial ties!
  4. Personal Development – Progress my PGCert qualifications by studying, reflecting &writing.
  5. Family – build and rebuild family relationships, paying attention to their needs. We’ve all had a tough year, and 
  6. Business – consolidate business interests (I have too many!), focus on the opportunities that matter, the ones that stimulate and motivate me. In the words of the great book “Do it, or Ditch It”.
  7. Partner – take time to support and nourish a new relationship, being conscious about what’s really important to us.
  8. Fun – take time for laughter, find a boxset that actually makes me laugh (just got introduced to The IT Crowd – that works)
  9. Hobbies – I have a few that I love, however I don’t spend enough time doing them. So this year I will consciously make an effort to spend some time every week indulging in time doing things I love, whether that’s a good crossword, a jigsaw, crochet or beadwork. 
  10. More fun – Learn how to drive a virtual car on the PS4 without needing to use the brake and steering assist! Seriously, only if you’ve tried will you know how hard it is. 

My advice to me – take each of these one month at a time. Don’t put too much pressure on myself to create big plans. See what the year brings. Try and enjoy it.

Andy’s Objectives

  1. By next New Year play Auld Lang Syne on the chanter (practice instrument for the bagpipes) and by 2022 on the bagpipes!
  2. Read something for 30 mins each day that’s not on a phone or iPad!  I love books and can’t resist the temptation to buy…. but can’t seem to find the time to commit to reading them…..
  3. Volunteer for a local charity.
  4. Sort out my digital photos, printed pictures (pre 2000’s) and digitize my slides (pre 1990s) so that I can bore my whole family and all my friends about what I did in the past and how good looking I was in my 20’s 
  5. Watch a sunset from a beach on an island off the West Coast of Scotland with the people I love.
  6. Exercise everyday just to feel good and for no other reason.
  7. Learn to fly a drone…. drones are cool and take very cool video and pictures, I want to learn to do that!
  8. Buy a sea kayak and do an overnight trip, catch and eat some fish and sleep under the stars.
  9. Teach my children how to make a proper cup of tea!  A life skill the Zoomers, Generation Z do not have, and it will die out if we are not careful!
  10. Watch a live sports event and/or go to a gig… have really missed the social interaction and energy of many people enjoying the same thing, that’s a big part of being human.

Photo by Markus Winkler from Pexels