Blog
Take a look at recent insights in leadership, strategy and more.
Justifying how we were yesterday
It’s an easy trap to fall into. In fact, it’s not so much a trap as the normal course... We act today to justify how we were yesterday. And we do the same tomorrow, and the next day and the next...
New options made possible by your progress—have you noticed?
Sometimes they creep up on us... New options, that is. We don’t notice at first. We’re so busy working on our current options—well, actually, our old options—that we don’t notice new ones have...
Interrupting the patterns—once we notice them
Sometimes it feels like we're actors in a drama, just showing up on stage and saying our lines. We're creatures of habit. We repeat the same patterns over and over, unconsciously for the most part....
Corporate organisations—more mindful of the human being or less?
We seem to live in divergent times... On the one hand, corporate organisations are becoming more procedural, more numbers-driven, more top-down in their approach. (That’s a generalisation of course,...
Being real vs. being consistent
We want people to be consistent. It makes it easier. We know where we stand. Or do we? Where we stand might be an illusion, if the other person isn’t being real. Being genuinely consistent requires...
How do you finish the unfinishable?
Depending on our background, certain kinds of tasks are easier to tackle than others because different types of work require different mindsets... Smaller, more discrete tasks can be worked on until...
What do you gather round to build the team?
Engineers discussing a drawing always seem to get along well. It's a great way to strengthen relationships in the team, whether within or between organisations, and often a good activity to suggest...
Change in here comes before change out there
We won’t achieve change in an organisation or in the world at large until we put our own house in order, whatever that may exactly entail. Our personal change work may well have a different form...
Role insecurity: Are you affected?
Most of us suffer from this at times, either on our own account, or indirectly when other people catch the affliction... We find ourselves justifying our involvement in a meeting or project, or...
A strange combination of short-termism and inertia
I hadn't thought of it quite like this before... We're used to the idea that bigger organisations tend to have more inertia than smaller ones. All other things being equal, it's harder to turn a...
Do you fight your influences?
That might seem a strange question, but think about it: Do you resist the learning which comes from your influences? Actually, I think, most of us do. Because influence means change, and change...
Once you’ve decided what matters…
...everything else doesn’t matter. We know the benefit of clarity well enough: Getting clear about what matters in a relationship of any kind, or any other context, means we can focus our energies...
Acting hard—a good idea?
An organisation wonders if it has a particular problem with stress—more than is typical... I ask whether the employees believe management cares about them, really wondering to what degree that is...
Is it a mistake to focus when you don’t know what works?
Focus, focus, focus—the key to having an impact, making progress, gaining traction. But what if you don’t really know what works, or don’t know yet? If you’re doing something new, you’re very...
The things we don’t like may be the very things we need to learn
Sometimes we react strongly against something someone else says. Or we see other people being surprisingly critical and dismissive of what seems pretty innocuous but useful information. The very...