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...
The past week has been one of new experience. Some planned medical stuff shifted/reduced the boundaries of what’s physically possible, thankfully temporarily. In this discomfort zone (and acknowledging an awful lot of help in the ‘baby’ stages of recovery) it has been about relearning how to be in my environment and with each stage of...
As a football fan, immersed in the World Cup (albeit at a distance), teams are much on my mind. Sure, I’d love my home nation to succeed but my interest feels more elemental than the partisanship of fandom. We’ve witnessed some stellar football. Some big names stepping up in tight corners and saving the day....
You’ll probably have heard the phrase ‘vacuum of vision’ being used over recent weeks. I came across it in a brilliant perspective piece from Richard Huntington in Management Today on the state of not just our current political leadership but also within our businesses. I think it’s worth a read. Of course, a deficit of...
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...
Like me, you probably can’t fail to be aware of the shift in the prevailing narrative – sharper, at times brutal. Words like dictatorship, colonialism, imperialism, force, world on the brink, populism, and many others appear routinely in our media and, often, in our day-to-day talk, to describe the shifts we are living through. We...
I’m deeply grateful that I get to not only talk about building a culture of psychological safety within leadership teams but also help them to build it. And that usually entails some exploration of vulnerability. It’s funny really because working on resilience from the perspective of ‘being strong’ feels like safer territory for many in...
Okay. That’s not actually true. But it’s heartening that we have just seen the appointment of the first female Archbishop of Canterbury. Japan has its first female Prime Minister in Sanae Takaichi. And the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the incredibly courageous leader of the opposition in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado, despite lobbying...
Growth is an ever present in our current discourse – in organisations as well as nationally and globally – centred entirely (or so it seems) on the financial economy. In business it’s about pulling the levers enabling one resource or constraining another to grow the numbers and bottom line in service of an exclusive group...
Driving in Sicily recently I was struck by the seemingly infinite tolerance that was present on the, to me, deeply chaotic roads and how the drivers didn’t seem to flinch when someone pulled out in front of them unexpectedly and without warning. They certainly rarely used the car horn or rude gestures at the other...