Nicole Davidson

If it’s broken, fix it – don’t throw performance reviews away


It seems that performance review bashing has become the newest sport in human resources. Recent weeks have seen several major Australian corporates announce that they are scrapping annual performance reviews. These announcements are sending some practitioners jumping for joy – after all, plenty of research shows us that no-one like performance reviews. Before we get […]

Personality: does it hold the key to influencing?


‘Personality is everything in art and poetry.’ So said Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and we know intuitively that this is true. But what about influencing? What is the role of personality in the art and poetry of an influencing conversation? As a facilitator of CMA’s Influence in the Workplace workshop, I often hear this question. […]

Mind your language: how to give effective performance feedback


Performance feedback – it’s a phrase almost guaranteed to fill managers and employees alike with a sense of dread. That’s disturbing, but hardly surprising when you consider the negative way in which most feedback in the workplace is delivered. As a learning and development professional who passionately believes in quality performance conversations, I can’t emphasise enough […]