Monkey Puzzle Blog

I’ll let you into a little secret - no one’s Christmas actually looks like their Facebook post would have you believe. Most of us are just grateful we’ve managed to serve something resembling a dinner and not poisoned anyone in the process.

There’s a reason Christmas Eve is the most common time of year for people to fall ill. Exhausted with the pressure of organising and burning the candle at both ends, most of us roll into the festive season and our bodies take the opportunity for a break - and make us ill. Avoid that this year with a bit of thought and careful planning.

It can be hard as a manager, leader or HR professional when people do behaviour that is troublesome or difficult to know how best to handle it. We usually suggest that you spend some time trying to ascertain what’s behind the behaviour before deciding, but this can be easier said than done ...

Helen was a well qualified, competent L&D Manager in the retail industry. Having reached the top end of middle-management she was looking to move up to a Director position but was disappointed not to get promotions on two occasions ...

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a collection of techniques that help people do more of their good ‘programmes’ and change their unhelpful ones. The techniques get your conscious and unconscious mind working together for you, making it much easier to make changes than by will power alone ...

It’s tough when you feel pulled in different directions, unable to spend time doing the things you want to. Being more balanced is a very personal thing because we are all different - to some people sitting on a beach is relaxing - to some it is the very definition of boredom! ...

When you’ve worked hard for your professional qualifications, you’d like to think they provide you with guaranteed future career success. They are the foundation, but not the whole picture...

Eleanor is an Entrepreneur, Success Coach and Master Facilitator based in Sydney, Australia. Running a busy and successful coaching and training organisation requires her to be super organised to stay on top of everything and grow the business. 
How does she do it? ...

A lot of organisations have values statements. These are fairly easy to put together but not so easy for organisations to live up to. Companies we work with are constantly asking us to help them implement their values. There are some key reasons why businesses find this so hard...

There was a time when doing any kind of coaching, self-help or personal development was a bit taboo - you had to be a hippie or have serious issues to spend your time and money on such things. Times have changed and now anyone who’s anyone has a coach and purchases of self help books are at an all time high...

This is not an uncommon debate for businesses. Why and when should I use internal trainers and when should I bring in external trainers or use external training courses? Let’s consider some of the key issues as part of that debate...

Many organisations cite a ‘no blame’ culture whilst behind the scenes fault finding is a major preoccupation. We all like to believe that there is no blame and it’s best to focus on moving forward, but human nature depicts that we feel a lot better about ourselves when something is not ‘our fault’, so naturally we will look for fault and blame outside ourselves and be hugely relieved if we find it...