The People Grower

Anne Axford is associate director for learning and development at Portsmouth PCT.

Latest Posts

Bridging the financial gap

The challenge of reducing spend continues and managers are looking ever more creatively at how to reduce the bottom line. I think I may have found a solution!

A short course in leadership

By Anne Axford

What is leadership all about, and how can you learn to be a better leader. Do you need to go on a course, read a book, or what?

Cluster development

By Anne Axford

What are people doing to support staff who will be working in clusters? What are the "must do" activities, and how can clusters share best practice?

Self Coaching - is it possible?

By Anne Axford

Exploring the value of self coaching and whether it is a substitute for one to one coaching, and the support of a coaching style of management

How many of us have thought, at some time, I'll really feel happy when (I've got the promotion, bought the new car, been on a world cruise...or whatever) and see happiness as something over the horizon - when what we already have is something to celebrate?

Thrive, survive and take control

By Anne Axford

How to manage the changes that you may not have chosen and emerge positively

Career coaching

By Anne Axford

Why are we so backward in coming forward? Writing a list of our achievements doesn't come easily to most people - and now is the time to learn.

Managing Change

By Anne Axford

As the changes to the NHS continue to exercise the minds of NHS staff potentially "affected by change" what are the main themes emerging?

Developing the Healthcare Workforce

By Anne Axford

Consultations come thick and fast, a bit like the current weather.

Healthy Lives, Healthy People....

By Anne Axford

Ring fenced public health budgets may be too late for resources currently facing the axe in local government budget cuts

PCT fall guys

By Anne Axford

PCTs are in the frame again - this time Dame Barbara Hakin warns GP consortia not to turn to them for support, highlighting other options available to them. How does this feel if you work in a PCT?

Arbinger Institute's Self Deception

By Anne Axford

What if you had a problem, but you didn't know that you had a problem? Do you see people as people or as objects? Are you carrying around boxes that prevent you making the right choices in what you do?

We need to celebrate best practice in tough financial times

By Anne Axford

Should we be spending scarce resource on award ceremonies that recognise achievements and effort? I think this is money well spent.

If you can, do: if you can't....

By Anne Axford

A tidal wave of conferences, seminars, webinars and more - how valuable are they, and how much do they contribute to the debate?

Being free at the point of need is one of the NHS's greatest strengths

By Anne Axford

Comparing the NHS to the US health system, and making a plea to retain the best of what the NHS offers at a time when “all change” may be seen as the holy grail

The NHS needs active listeners

By Anne Axford

Active listening - it is said we are given two ears and one mouth, and should therefore listen twice as much as we speak. John Whitmore, in his book “Coaching for Performance” tells us that most people are not good at listening to others, and that it is a skill that requires both concentration and practice.

What does it feel like to be a PCT manager?

By Anne Axford

PCTs will disappear from 2013 - what does it feel like to be a manager in one?

Should we eradicate dyslexia?

By Anne Axford

There are some highly successful and influential people who have dyslexia, and some might argue that it is this that has given them the abilities they needed to succeed. What are the positive aspects?

Networking

By Anne Axford

How effective are you at networking? Do you get the best out of it, and do you know what works best?

Good to Great

By Anne Axford

Andy Burnham’s vision for the NHS for the next 5 years - preventative, people-centred, productive. Oh, and computers….

On coaching and interference

By Anne Axford

I’m part way through a coaching qualification. I’m learning a lot about others, but a whole lot more about myself! I’m not going to get into definitions of coaching, counselling and mentoring (that’s another whole blog on its own) but one of the fundamentals is that the agenda needs to be led by the coachee (the person being coached, for the uninitiated).

PRINCE2

By Anne Axford

What does PRINCE2 mean to you?

your worst decision

By Anne Axford

What's the worst decision you have ever made?

What on earth is MBTI?

By Anne Axford

“I’m ENTP – I’m guessing you are ESFJ – but what do you think J Is? ISTJ or INTP?” What on earth is this gibberish? If you’ve never been “MBTI’d” it will mean absolutely nothing. If you have – you will immediately be leaping to a set of information about me and the others, based on the Myers Briggs type Indicator.

Powerpoint presentations

By Anne Axford

“Beware of anyone who says that they're "just going to talk to some slides" - because that's exactly what they'll do - without realising that they're spending most of their time with their backs to the audience.” So says Max Atkinson, author of “Speech making and Presentations made easy”, in BBC news Magazine on 19th August.

Talent Management

By Anne Axford

How can we recruit and retain the very best people for the NHS? David Nicholson said in the foreword to “Inspiring leaders; leadership for quality” that it was imperative to align work on leadership with achievement on quality. He describes it as “Leadership with a purpose”. So how to identify and grow those leaders who will be critical in the achievement of high quality care for all?

To coach or not to coach…

By Anne Axford

There’s many different forms of coaching, from the informal, “water cooler” conversation, through manager coaching to more formal internal or external coaching. Coaching as a style of management is now accepted as effective, but there is a growing trend towards formal coaching, because of the growing evidence of its worth.

Mental Health Diet

By Anne Axford

The power of positive thinking – is your glass half full or half empty? You can choose your mood, and control your state of mind to improve outcomes for yourself and those around you. Is this just so much mumbo-jumbo, or is there something in it?

The future of nursing and midwifery

By Anne Axford

As a commission looks at what skills and competencies nurses and midwives need for the future, Martha Lane Fox tells the NHS what it was like to be on the receiving end of the NHS following a major accident. Do nurses need a degree? What makes a good nurse? And where can you find out what patients think of their local hospital?

number crunching leadership

By Anne Axford

Leading and managing by numbers - or how to find a set of theories, skills, disciplines, habits or principles to fit whatever your burning issue is today.

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