We are surrounded by crises big and small and the inclination to see them as something to be afraid of is strong – after all we have inbuilt fight and flight mechanisms for a reason and when we see the danger posed by many of the crises why wouldn’t we allow ourselves to feel fearful....
In our interactions with others we can often assume that we are all having the same experience, viewing the situation similarly and extracting the same data. The reality is we are having entirely different experiences, picking up on very different things, seeing, and hearing, with different (literally) eyes and ears. If we imagine this in...
As human beings we are constantly in the process of becoming. With the advance of each moment in time we are changing – physically, mentally, and emotionally. What might be missing though is how conscious we are of these changes. Physically (and biologically) our body is doing its thing. How aware, though, are we of...
We all know that moment (or moments) when we absolutely know that we need to shift our mindset, change direction, do something different…do something and yet a fog of inertia seems to reign. The pressure mounts inside us and yet nothing seems to move or change and despite being capable, positive people we encounter a...
At a time when some parts of the world are stalling on their position on diversity, equality and inclusion with some organisations seemingly pulling back their focus or programmes, or both, following the recent declarations in the US, it seems to me that it could be timely to consider what it is that we mean...
Latter day heroes conjure up very clear archetypes of dragon slaying, evil beating, world saving on a vast scale. Romantic, seemingly invincible and invariably male, these heroes were the very epitome of courage and strong values. The courage needed in leadership today is no less great, but my sense is that its nature is quite...
I’ve attended a few online sessions in the past couple of weeks. All of them promised learning (even in the fine print) yet turned out to be sales webinars aimed at getting people signed up for a range of support services or development programmes. Scanning the meeting Chat showed others were also feeling less than...
Skilful communication is one of the pre-requisites of leadership yet a few conversations in the past week have come as a reminder of how hard we can find it to get this right and how often neglected it is in race to deliver targets. Perhaps the problem is that we see it as a given....
We already knew this yet the past few weeks have reminded us, starkly, that there’s little normal about our world anymore, little that we can rely on. The status quo is being upended daily, more so even than in pandemic times. Cowering behind the metaphorical sofa, assuming this will blow over, is an option but...
One of the key factors that we promote and seek to develop in high performing teams here at azzur is the ability for senior execs to work in the collective space, in which they move beyond their functional specialism and into being a ‘board’ where every member is truly functioning across all disciplines. This isn’t...