On the whole, most leaders either love the generally fast pace of corporate life or, if they don’t, have learnt how to work within it without being mown down by it. It can be exhilarating and full of passion and true creativity but more often than not it tends to result in an almost robotic...
We may bemoan the lack of talent when we’re looking to recruit. All the sages (and indicators) tell us there’s a shortage. Meanwhile we may express a need to bring fresh thinking into the team or organisation and commit to doing so. Then there’s the likelihood that we get caught in the urgency trap. Needing...
Have you ever really focused on what happens when people come together in a group? Imagine there’s a complex, knotty issue under discussion. How much of the energy is given to wrestling with the facts and solving the issue in a linear efficient mode, how much to the less visible knots and how much to...
Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify recently became the latest organisation to take an axe to meetings. All recurring meetings with more than two people have been banned, Wednesdays are meeting free and big meetings – of 50+ people – have to fit a six-hour window on Thursdays and are limited to one a week. You may...
So many of the attributes often associated with great leadership come from the masculine energy dimension – action, logic, boldness, physical strength, discipline, self-control and so on. These attributes have facilitated many great achievements in the hands of some leaders and wrought unhelpful destruction in the hands of others when taken to extremes. At this...
It’s so easy to become locked in our own worldview. In our defence we’ve probably cultivated it over years of experience and processing of ‘information’ that has served us well in navigating the various twists and turns of life. The challenge of course is the one of assumptions and mental models…both of which can create...
We are all guilty of it…wilful blindness. Those times when we can see that something untoward is happening and yet somehow we turn away, don’t speak up, find ourselves ‘resigned’ to the situation even knowing it’s less than it should/could be. Margaret Heffernan has written on this subject and her Ted Talk is a salutary...
Have you ever considered what it could look like to be truly joyful in your work. What if those who lead were committed to cultivating a joyful workplace. Joy isn’t a word we often hear associated with the world of work. In fact, so often it’s the opposite – sometimes a huge sigh, for others...