Creating Enlightened Organisations
You’re pretty clever… I bet you ‘know’ lots of stuff. You went to school, you probably went to University and studied interesting things. Then you launched a career where you have done important, meaningful work – along with some work that seemed less meaningful. You have a whole stack of life experiences: maybe you’ve bought … Read more The Knowing-Doing Gap: A Leader’s Guide
I confess, I am a recovering ‘know-it-all’. I am clever and well-educated, and I used to believe that my strength came from having all the answers. When my husband and I first started dating, our arguments usually stemmed from one of two things: money (we didn’t have much, which made it stressful) and me correcting … Read more No-one Likes a Know-It-All
What is it that I am resisting? She said “be more colourful, we didn’t meet the real you.” She said “use the intonation of your voice, let you passion shine through.” She was a psychologist providing me feedback after a job interview assessment centre. Today’s post is a little different… more like a journal entry … Read more Resistance: The Enemy of Growth
I remember as a child, the excitement that would build and build in the lead-up to Christmas Day. Starting with putting up the tree and decorating it, school finishing up for the summer holidays (I live in the Southern Hemisphere), going shopping with my saved-up pocket money to buy gifts for family… There were always … Read more Uncertainty: What To Do When You Don’t Know…
I suspect you’re a bit like me… that you’re highly goal oriented. That you are motivated to accomplish big things and have an impact in the world – whatever that looks like for you. But being ambitious and striving for success can come at a cost. Usually, that cost is the inability to be content … Read more Ambition, Striving and Acceptance: Permission to Relax
Decision holds the key to massive impact, fulfilment and living a life of inspiration and purpose, yet it remains one of our least understood and most underused superpowers. I’ve been experiencing a bit of the back-to-work-blues this week. I took about a month off in late December/early January and had a lovely, productive, family-oriented, spontaneous … Read more Decision: Your Brain’s Most Underused Superpower
New Year is a time when many of us review the previous 12 months, and reflect upon our successes, and more often, the things that weren’t perfect. It is also the time we set goals and resolutions for the coming year. For perfectionists, this can be torturous. We can focus more on the gap between … Read more Nothing Is Perfect – But You Can Make It Better
For a long time psychologists studying intelligence believed it was a fixed trait. Something that remained stable over the course of your lifetime. This had two outcomes. It made it easy (and worthwhile) to measure intelligence and treat people differently according to their scores… And for those with low scores? They could give up! What … Read more Growth Mindset: What Is It and Why You Should Get One…
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” ~ Warren Buffett Many of us take the opportunity during the Christmas/New Year break to reflect on the year that was, and to make resolutions for the coming year. I’m super excited because under my Christmas tree this … Read more The Five Winning Habits of Successful Leaders
“Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” ~ Sun Tzu The ‘festive’ season is typically associated with additional stress. There’s the usual suspects – money for example. Increased expectations for treats and gifts can make us feel overwhelmed by financial obligations and the knowledge that a debt tidal wave is likely to … Read more “Resistance is Futile!” – Holiday Survival Guide
“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
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” ~ Zig Ziglar Just back from a week’s holiday in Sydney with our charming but wilful four-year-old… I’m not sure I have any oomph left. It feels like the run down to Christmas. Like I should be … Read more “What’s the Point?” – When Motivation Fails
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” ~ Marcus Aurelius Breathing is a pretty phenomenal feat. Yet we pretty much take it for granted. So I’d like to invite you to pause, breathe, and pay homage … Read more Time to Breathe… Your Most Overlooked Skill
“…those who divide the world into two kinds of people and…” you get the picture. One of my son’s favourite bedtime stories is “The Sneetches” by Dr. Seuss. He particularly enjoys the scene where the Star-belly Sneetches and the Plain-belly Sneetches are racing around: “Changing their stars every minute or two. They kept paying money. They kept … Read more Two Kinds of People in the World… Which are you?
“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation… even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci The english language intrigues me… perhaps never more so when two idioms that strictly speaking say the same thing, mean the exact opposite. In a recent poll on this site, a … Read more In the Groove… or Stuck in a Rut? Avoiding Stagnation
“Corporate culture matters. How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything – for better or for worse.” ~ Simon Sinek Workplaces are made up of people. And people are, well… people. And people can be motivated and driven by invisible and incomprehensible forces… Our brains don’t work the same, and yet we expect other … Read more Complaining, Gossip, Sarcasm and Other Office Ailments
“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
“Our diversity is our strength. What a dull and pointless life it would be if everyone was the same.” ~ Angelina Jolie I have been trialling a new tool with some of my coaching clients, and I wanted to share a couple of observations with you about the breathtaking beauty of diversity. And the extent … Read more Diversity: The Power of Multiple Perspectives
“I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of … Read more Personal Brand: Objectivity, Ownership and Letting Go…
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” ~ Jackie Robinson It’s been a tough week this week. Or maybe I should say a busy week. I’m trying to find my ‘why’. If you’ve seen it lying about somewhere, please let me know! I feel like the lack of … Read more Maximising your Impact – Personal, Professional, Global
“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
“I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.” ~ Michelle Obama I’m picking that you’re reading this article because, like me, you’re educated, ambitious, articulate and confident. … Read more “What if I’m Wrong?” Leadership and the Moral Compass
People often ask me about the books I read. Specifically, they want to know what leadership books I’d recommend – there are so many! Usually I try and curate a list on the spot based on what I know about the person who is asking, but I almost always miss something. There are already lots of “Leaders’ … Read more 5 Books you Must Read if you Consider Yourself a Leader
“There is no decision that we can make that doesn’t come with some sort of balance or sacrifice” ~ Simon Sinek Returning to work after the birth of our son is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. But not for any of the reasons that I expected. I expected to … Read more Work/Life Balance: A Perfectionist’s Folly
“When people talk, they lay lines on each other, do a lot of role playing, sidestep, shilly-shally and engage in all manner of vagueness and innuendo. We do this and expect others to do it, yet at the same time we profess to long for the plain truth, for people to say what they mean, … Read more Hypocrisy: Why Morality, Authenticity and Civility Matter
“Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics.” ~ Steven Pinker My first senior management role came with a media delegation. This meant that, once I’d had media training, I was authorised to … Read more “You Got This” – Confidence in Spite of the Odds
“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe” ~ Gustave Flaubert I’ve been ‘blogging’ about leadership development for a while now (OK – nearly five months), and I have been reflecting on what I’ve learned in that time. Probably the most significant lesson – and possibly the biggest surprise – is … Read more Blogging: A Tool for Leadership Development
“New Year’s Eve is a great time to think about making a resolution to change a behavior, improve upon a practice, or to start something new. Most people don’t keep their resolutions very far into the year, but there’s no reason to wait until Dec 31st to reboot” ~ Dana Perino No matter what sort … Read more Reboot: How to Get Going when you’re Stuck
“We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh My local bookshop, Unity, has to be one of my favourite places in the whole world. Small enough to be personal, but big enough to have so many books and choices I’ll never run out of options to browse. I’ve … Read more Possibilities: Why I Love Books (and Journals)
“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
“Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.” ― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be … Read more The Perils of Perfectionism – A Pragmatist’s Guide
I know that they say “curiosity killed the cat” but I’m not convinced. I reckon there’s more to the story. Because I suspect, even if ultimately curiosity did kill the cat, that cat accomplished a lot more in its life than it otherwise would have, because of curiosity! The practice of being a leader can be overwhelming … Read more Curiosity: A Vital Leadership Superpower
Complacency is the enemy of mindful, deliberate leadership. Like many things in life, leadership follows a ‘bell-curve’ shaped trajectory. You take on the big exciting new role, and you (hopefully) recognise the steep learning curve ahead of you. You work hard – probably doing longer hours than you planned when you took the role – … Read more Complacency: The Danger of the Comfort Zone
I’ve just had three days out of action with a particularly nasty head-cold. (It’s winter right now in my part of the world.) And while I really wanted to get in front of my computer and slog out something helpful for all of you fabulous people – I knew I wasn’t leading if I wasn’t … Read more Self Leadership: Take Care of You First
Your brain loves to make assumptions. They’re efficient. They’re practical. They’re quick. But often, they’re just plain wrong! Early on in a big IT project I’m familiar with, a tiny and seemingly inconsequential decision was made… The project was incredibly complicated – it involved replacing one big complex IT system with another big complex IT system with … Read more Assumptions: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Often, leadership is very serious business. There are weighty responsibilities, and vital goals to be accomplished. But if it were all hard grind all the time, why would anyone do it? Leadership can be lots of fun too – and it should be. So today I want to share with you five fun things about … Read more Five Fun Things: The Best Bits of Leadership
It is entirely possible that the most powerful thing in the world is the humble question mark. Whether written, or spoken, it has the potential to create revolutionary change, turn mice into men and bring dictators to their knees. How? (See what I did there!) By creating a gap. A powerful, searching, probing gap. And … Read more The Inexplicable Power of the Humble Question Mark
Small acts of courage Today, I did a very brave thing, at least for an introvert… I asked a complete stranger to mentor me on the basis of hearing her keynote speech and subsequent Q&A. What intrigued me most was how aware and mindful I was about each step in the process: the idea – … Read more Courage: The Foundation of Leadership
I failed this week. Does that make me a failure? Last Sunday, I set myself and my readers a challenge: every time someone asked me a question, I was to answer with a question. I failed miserably. I managed to do it twice, out of what must have been hundreds of questions. What a failure! … Read more “I Failed” or “I’m a Failure”: Growth from Adversity
In a recent post, I spoke about a leader’s most valuable talent – the ability to resist making complicated things overly simple, appealing to the lowest common denominator. This really got me thinking about one of the skills that we all respect and admire in great leaders: thinking on your feet. Some people are brilliant at … Read more Thinking on your Feet: Leadership Communication
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
When I was pregnant, my fabulous hairdresser, Jason (who Blogs about Barbering and basically anything), said to me: “the truest thing I ever heard about having kids? The years fly by, but the days last forever!”. Truly the most useful advice I received about parenting! And believe me, everyone has advice. This post is the first … Read more Leadership Insights: Perceptions of Time
In my part of the world we are heading into winter. The days are getting shorter. And colder. I can feel my energy levels ebbing – as though some form of inspiration hibernation is about to occur. If you’re anything like me, this time of year is also accompanied by a false but strangely compelling … Read more Energy to Lead: Remember It’s a Marathon, not a Sprint
Why Communication is Hard Communication (or lack of it) is the most frequently cited cause of workplace dissatisfaction, disengagement and frustration. It can lead to relationship breakdowns, corporate collapses and world wars. In a recent “Wait But Why” post about Elon Musk’s latest big idea, Tim Urban provided a deceptively simple explanation of why communication between … Read more Why Communication is so Hard: 7 Things to Improve
As I watch the first moist grey hues of the morning’s light creep in at the edges of the sky, I can’t help but feel fortunate. This half-light/half-dark point marks the transition between night and day. Two states of being that summon very different ideas, and for most people, represent completely different behaviours, emotions, activities … Read more A Miracle Morning
I want to share two life changing reasons for why you should become more deliberate in your decision making. Brain = Automation Engine Your brain will avoid work at all costs. Seriously. It will go out of its way to do less. One of the brilliant hacks your brain has is its ability to tune out … Read more Who’s Really in Charge of your Decisions?
I want to share an important insight with you: only you are thinking about you. Devastating, I know, but it’s true. Not long after the birth of my son, working through the tricky and messy and unplannable return-to-work phase, I had what I can only describe as a crisis of confidence; something those who know … Read more You’re the Only One Thinking About You (Well Almost)