Ken Warren

Managing Your Critical, Unsupportive Manage

What do you do if you have a manager who treats you disrespectfully and is regularly critical of your work? It is one thing giving feedback to a co-worker. It is quite another thing to give feedback to your manager who has the power to hire and fire or at... Read >

When Grief Goes Wrong

My dear mum, Ethel, did not manage well at all after my dad, Bob, died when my brother and I were aged 8 and 5. Although we were all absolutely grief-stricken, mum's grief was especially intense, prolonged and tragic. In the immediate days following, mum ... Read >

Motivating By Discomfort

A little while back I was commiserating with a cycling friend about our respective difficulties in losing weight. We decided there was only one solution for it - a competition to see who could be the Biggest Loser. The spoils of victory would be the utter... Read >

The Gruff-Love Approach To Behaviour Management

Please find following a tongue-in-cheek article which I hope makes you smile as well as gets you thinking. The advice following is not meant to be taken seriously. If you think of the opposite of what I am advising below, you will identify what really wor... Read >

Why Can Teams Of Women Be So Difficult?

I should say from the start here that I am on very thin ice writing this article given I am male. I will save my criticism of men for another day. But I frequently hear managers, many of them women, complaining about the dynamics occurring within a largel... Read >

Recognise And Use Your Strengths

I remember when I first realised that my wife-to-be was a lot smarter than me. We were sitting in an old church waiting for a friend's wedding to start and I noticed some strange writing underneath the stained glass windows. "Would you like me to interpre... Read >

Beware The 7 Deadly Sins Of Relationships

In the late 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great developed a list of seven deadly sins. Here now, I will attempt to give a modern slant on these in regard to your relationship with your partner. The first of the deadly sins is pride, which raises its ug... Read >

10 Dumb Things People Do In Relationships

Looking for inspiration for this article, I asked my wife, Christy, to help me identify one dumb thing I do in our relationship. I should have known better. "Only one?" she asked innocently. Apart from the occasional Saint among us, the rest of us are pre... Read >

7 Keys To Becoming More Likeable

My wife, Christy, recently had to see a new doctor about a few questions she had. When she came home, I asked what the doctor had to say. She said that she couldn't remember. All she could remember was that she liked him. If you work with people, the l... Read >

Engaging Resistant Clients

When I started my career as a therapist in 1986, I actually believed all of my clients would want to work with me, would make the most of that time, and would be appreciative of my efforts. You can stop laughing now. I quickly was brought back to earth b... Read >

Rewrite Your Life Story

Whenever my two young boys read a story, invariably they want to act it out in some way. We read a story about a dragon and then they want to make a house for the dragon in our backyard. We read a story about an octopus and then they want to make an octop... Read >

Five Reasons People Change

As a practising therapist for most of my career, I considered myself in the change business - helping people break problem patterns of behaviour. But anyone who works with people knows that not everyone sees the need for change or is motivated to take act... Read >