Creating Enlightened Organisations
Yes, I know I’m about to sound like a bit of a nerd, but I came across something really exciting in my LinkedIn Feed yesterday. Now please bear in mind that what the American Business Roundtable does, usually doesn’t have immediate impact in New Zealand – so some of you will point out (quite correctly) … Read more The Purpose of a Company…
Almost all the leadership literature I’ve read has some version of this quote: that spotting talent is one of, if not the main, objective of leadership. And in particular, spotting leadership talent. Yet everyone I speak to about this topic agrees that almost every leader is bad at it. How many times have you witnessed … Read more Why Most Managers Are Terrible At Spotting Talent
“Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.” ~ Alan Perlis Two of the roles I had early in my career were in organisations with a macro-level view on systems: one was in the area of public sector management and the other was leadership – or at least public sector … Read more Complexity: Why Most Leadership Advice Is Wrong
“Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” ~ Peter Drucker Teams come in all different shapes and sizes… and performance levels. It is very rare for a manager to have the opportunity to appoint … Read more Management Challenge: Poor Performing Staff
“Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” ~ Richard Branson Management is Seeing What’s Missing Have you ever noticed that there are some things in the world that you really despise when you have them, but that you don’t notice when you don’t have them? Like pain. Or feeling unwell. While it’s … Read more Opportunities: Seeing What’s Missing and Taking Action
“Any emails that contain the words ‘important’ or ‘urgent’ never are, and annoy me to the point of not replying out of principle.” ~ Markus Persson You know the feeling. You’ve overcome your procrastination… You’re fed and hydrated… You’ve put your social media well out of arm’s reach… You are about to start that important … Read more Urgent Versus Important: Playing Corporate Whack-a-Mole
“Days are expensive. When you spend a day you have one less day to spend. So make sure you spend each one wisely.” ~ Jim Rohn I’m not sure I truly appreciated time until I had a child. I’ve always been ambitious and impatient to accomplish things quickly, but there’s nothing quite like waking up … Read more Time Management: Make the Most of What You’ve Got
“Control what you can control. Don’t lose sleep worrying about things that you don’t have control over because, at the end of the day, you still won’t have any control over them.” ~ Cam Newton The bigger the job, the more complex the problem, the more crowded the market, the more things seem to be … Read more “I Surrender” – Why Taking Control Means Letting Go
“True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes.” ~ Daniel Kahneman As a kid, I loved playing cricket. I was a fast bowler, and also a halfway decent batsman. We had a lawn big enough to have a cricket pitch, and all through the summer, I’d practice my bowling, using our … Read more Feedback Unleashed
“I encourage active skepticism – when people are being skeptical because they’re trying to identify the best course of action. They’re trying to identify the next step for themselves or other people” ~ Tim Ferris I am proudly on the record as a self-proclaimed optimist – and I think that optimism is vital for leadership, … Read more Skeptical Optimism: Reality Checks and Fake News
“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they’ve started.” ~ David Allen I’ve been reflecting on how much I’ve taken on. Of my own doing, of course, but commitments none-the-less. This week is particularly busy at work – largely responsibilities that … Read more Overcome Overwhelm: Managing Work-related Stress
There are some people who use the words leadership and management inter-changeably – as two words that mean the same thing. This bothers me. Not because I am a stickler for correct usage of the english language (although that’s a perfectly acceptable reason) but because it stems from a lack of understanding that there is … Read more The Difference between Leadership and Management
Meetings might well be the single biggest time-sink in any medium to large size organisation, with the possible exception of email. There have been times in my career – especially in times of crisis/semi-crisis or when deadlines are looming – that I have literally reached a Friday afternoon and realised that I feel like I … Read more Top 10 Tips to Create Mindful Meetings that Matter
Pleasure & Pain – The Heart of Decision Making At our most basic fundamental level, human decision making is driven by two things: moving away from pain and moving toward pleasure. Within the personal development literature, there is a very compelling argument that ‘towards’ goals are more emotionally compelling than ‘away from’ goals. In other words, that … Read more Decision Making: The Pitfalls of ‘Over Correcting’
Many people (and particularly technology companies) have written about the ways technology will change the nature of work. In particular, there has been a great deal of discussion about the impact of remote work on problems like traffic congestion, corporate overheads, carbon emissions and so on. But this emphasis on the positive impact technology will … Read more The Remoteness of Remote Work