I sometimes look back on my career and think did I ever master anything and does it matter. I was a skilled generalist leader in my corporate career but didn’t really become a specialist until I became an OD consultant and coach. Provoked by another discussion though I found myself reflecting on the value of...
If you have a garden, yours, like mine, is probably looking more than sorry for itself after several weeks of heat. Faithful watering (watering can only) is keeping its fatigue at bay, hopefully. Pondering the garden has got me thinking that leadership is much akin to gardening, not least because it requires us to consciously...
Wisdom in leadership is vital, and elephants are famed for being wise. Packing your Exec group with wise leaders is likely to bring huge rewards because wisdom isn’t just a factor of experience, though of course that helps, wisdom is an expression of consciousness. And by that, I mean a deep sense of knowing and...
I was reflecting the other day that living in and with the complexity of our world today demands a number of new powers. First amongst them may be the ability to see – something of course most of us take for granted. It can be overwhelming juggling the huge number of demands of our times...
The idea of paying it forward has been on my mind this week, prompted by attending the 19th birthday celebration for global business giving movement B1G1. azzur has been a member since 2013 and makes a donation for every person who completes leadership or team development with us. Our giving aids education (unsurprisingly), empowering women,...
Stability has been on my mind in recent days given the apparent instability of the world around us. I imagine it’s much the same for you. For most of us stability is important. Part of our sense of security. When it is in seemingly short supply anxiety can take hold, distracting us from what needs...
Some recent conversations have reminded me again of how communication, the words we use, the energy behind them, and the context in which they’re set can easily undermine rather than achieve our intention. For me this is all about the framing. Time poor, results challenged leaders may feel they don’t have time to think carefully...
There’s little predictable about our world right now. Conflict. Political uncertainty. Shaky business confidence. You’ll have your own examples. Predictable, stable looks like an ever more distant continent. I confess I am comfortable with predictable (it’s probably the same for you). And yet, volatile is attractive too. Great leaps forward come from volatility. The discovery...
I’m just emerging from a 48-hour leadership retreat where we blended spontaneous creative thinking, deep reflection, cultural immersion, personal reflection and growth and practical project scoping — all while strengthening a working relationship that will matter deeply in the years ahead. I call it leadership alchemy. Sound appealing? When we consciously step away from operational...
It’s been a week! Days of working to get different software systems to talk to each other and ‘conversing’ with chatbots, trying to penetrate the rigidity of their scripts, to access help. A life on repeat. Eventually a breakthrough has been made. Everything looks like it is synced (fingers crossed). As frustrating as the process...