My 2016 target: one word every two minutes
It’s been a busy month – probably the busiest of the course so far. The deadline for the penultimate module, on Training and Development, came and went on 12th November, with the deadline for the...
View ArticleWhat occupational psychologists get up to in January
Happy New Year! This week I’ve had the pleasure of spending three days at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology annual conference, held at the East Midlands Conference...
View ArticleFalling off the ethical happy path
It’s Sunday morning. I’m currently surrounded by books, academic papers, highlighter pens and lots of scrappy notes. I’m ploughing my way through the individual at work module in an attempt to start...
View ArticleStress and procrastination
Someone in the occupational psychology course team clearly has a sense of humour. Having finally squeaked my way around the ethical approval process a couple of weeks ago and having recovered from the...
View ArticleMSc occupational psychology modules review
Last night I submitted the final module assignment for my MSc occupational psychology qualification at the University of Leicester – hurrah! It’s now just the small matter of restarting the...
View ArticleSix things needed for a research interview
On Monday I will start to feel like a ‘proper’ researcher. That’s because I’ve reached the stage in my dissertation when I can conduct a pilot interview. The aim of piloting the interview is to make...
View Article6 things my pilot research interview taught me
I’ve now completed my pilot research interview, transcribed the resulting audio and conducted a very brief analysis of the data. These are six of the more important things the pilot has taught me. I...
View ArticleA distinction in procrastination
Hello all – and please accept my apologies for being away from here for a little while. “No problem”, I can hear you all saying, “we understand that you’ve been working hard on your dissertation,...
View ArticleWhy #RemaIN may be failing the “pink tuna” test
The current batch of opinion polls make worrying reading for those of us backing the remain camp in the forthcoming EU referendum. It’s not lost yet of course – far from it – and I remain convinced of...
View Article10,000 steps a day – day 11 – dissertation done!
My dissertation is officially finished. Yay! Well, almost: I will proof read it again tomorrow before submitting all 9,000 lovingly crafted words. But, done. Which brings me to the end of my MSc, too....
View ArticleDiscursive strategies used by sales leaders in value co-creation
Today, this amazing thing happened. A short paper based on my MSc research into the discursive strategies used by sales leaders has been included in the programme for the 2017 BPS division of...
View Article(Probably) the end
Hello! *Blows away the cobwebs and dusts furiously* I bet you thought that I’d forgotten about you all as I haven’t written anything here since May. Well, after my excellent attempts at procrastination...
View ArticleChoosing your tribe – them and us
“In Ireland you must choose your tribe. Reason has nothing to do with it.” So wrote J.G. Farrell in his 1970 novel Troubles. While much of what has happened politically in 2016 has felt both tribal...
View ArticleWhat makes an accomplished negotiator?
There are few empirical studies outside of academia that have looked into what makes an accomplished negotiator. However, in 1978(*), Neil Rackham and John Carlisle of the Huthwaite Group conducted one...
View ArticleYes, we are all individuals!
Josh Friedman’s recent article for Time, “It’s Okay to Be a Coward About Cancer“, is an interesting piece about the language that surrounds the disease. It’s written from the perspective of someone who...
View ArticlePoll: 73% say ‘Brexit dividend’ is a lie
A poll conducted on Monday 18th June 2018 found that 73% of those asked said the claim of a ‘Brexit dividend’ was a lie. 11% of respondents said that there would be a Brexit dividend,…Continue Reading...
View ArticleGraphology: Mere wishful thinking?
A graphologist (handwriting analyst) was interviewed on BBC Breakfast this morning. Resisting the urge to immediately rant on Twitter about the pseudoscience of graphology, I headed upstairs to my...
View ArticleThriving at work – #DOPconf 2019 review
Shortly after I’d been discharged from hospital last September, I made a decision to attend the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychologists annual conference (DOPconf to its...
View ArticleThe brain is (mostly) not a computer
I recently had my attention drawn to this essay from May 2016 – The Empty Brain – written by psychologist Robert Epstein (thanks Andrew). In it, Epstein argues that the dominant information processing...
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