7220 Sheep Herded!

3315 Sheep Herded!

Talk of the Barn
A day of insights, a lifetime of application.
Talk of the Barn
A day of insights, a lifetime of application.
Talk of the Barn
A day of insights, a lifetime of application.

#16. Developing people or training sheepdogs – is the psychology the same?

#16. Developing people or training sheepdogs - is the psychology the same? - Sheep-Podcast

In this week’s episode we welcome an award-winning people development specialist who brought together a remotely based cohort of lead consultants at management consultancy firm Newton Europe to spend a day with Raising the Baa. So why did she feel this was a good idea? Our first question will reveal all!

Diane Law has built her career helping organisations and their people to perform better. Her psychology background gave insight into how people learn and are motivated. Diane gained business and organisational insight through her MBA and her professional experience covers process improvement, change management, team leadership, strategic planning and all aspects of people development. Diane has formed internal L&D functions from scratch, building teams focusing on all aspects of learning.

Diane outlines the 3 key elements of a high performing team and reckons it generally takes about one year to establish it. We draw parallels with the shepherd training a 6-month-old puppy to become a dog that can be trusted to confidently drive a flock of sheep. The shepherd and his dog are the epitome of a well-oiled team when observed in a field but it takes many months of dedication, failures, understanding the common purpose, recognition and praise to get to this stage.

We discuss the challenges today’s leaders are facing during the pandemic when there is so much uncertainty. How can they maintain highly productive teams whilst ensuring that the sense of community and wellbeing is equally if not a greater priority? People need time out just as a working dog does or they will burn out. We’re all pack creatures after all, as Diane says, and that play and switch-off time is super important to us all. This could have led us to a much longer discussion and we preferred to respect your listening attention span. So instead we strongly recommend you read Diane’s article on the 9 IngredientS of Wellbeing, as also mentioned in the Resources section below.

Enjoy – and thank ewe for listening 🙂

Free resources:
Diane’s recent research into mental and physical health is summarised in this excellent article “9 IngredientS of Wellbeing” – have you got a good balance of the 9 ‘S’s or could you do with addressing one or two of them?

Sheep, Shepherd or Dog – which one are ewe? Take our personality quiz and find out.

Connect with the speakers via LinkedIn:
Caroline Palmer – Top Dog and Co-Founder, Raising the Baa
Chris Farnsworth – Head Shepherd and Co-Founder, Raising the Baa
Diane Law – Former Head of People Development at Newton Europe and Director of Peppermill Ltd

#16. Developing people or training sheepdogs - is the psychology the same? - sheep-wo

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#16. Developing people or training sheepdogs - is the psychology the same? - sheep-wo

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