Blog
Take a look at recent insights in leadership, strategy and more.
Abrasiveness loses in the end
An interesting lesson highlighted in UK politics this week... UK Government Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell finally resigned after being abusive to a policeman on security duty in Downing Street (outside...
Enabling learning—it’s all about the egos
Read the literature on organizational learning and you’ll find convincing descriptions of how fear or embarrassment impedes learning by individuals and teams. When something doesn’t turn out as...
Being principled – are you a softer target or a tougher one?
We might worry that operating in a principled and compassionate way makes us vulnerable—vulnerable to those who are happy to trample others in their quest for success; individuals who don’t care...
Don’t say you’re not breaching a confidence. Keep it to yourself
If you state you’re withholding information, you create a barrier between yourself and the people you are with. You break the connection. If you must have secrets, keep even that a secret. Of...
Don’t like change or don’t like feeling unsafe?
We hear it so often: “People don’t like change.” That isn’t quite right: After all, most of us would like a doubling of our income, or the gift of a free holiday with everything taken care of. We...
How unconscious is your leadership?
We tend to think of leadership as something we do consciously. In fact, it's not really like that at all. After all... As ground-breaking doctor and hypno-therapist, Milton Erickson said "what you...
Postpone the analysis, stay in the moment
People interacting with one another have sensory experiences involving images, sounds and feelings. Yet we’re often tempted to reach for analytical models; to turn the flesh and blood experience...
The importance of a specific goal, and a small step towards it
He travelled 18,297 miles round the world on a bicycle and beat his target of 195 days by 8 hours. His target was in reality an arbitrary estimate based on 100 miles per day with an allowance for...
Giving yourself permission
Author and speaker Sonia Choquette give a fabulous demonstration of giving yourself permission to be yourself and do essentially anything on stage. The 700 or so people present respond...
The leader: Master or servant or something else?
The notion of the "servant leader" conveys the important idea of the leader serving the people he or she leads. That's a useful shift in perspective from the more traditional idea of leader as...
Are you a shadow of your future self?
We’re probably familiar with the old expression “a shadow of her former self”, implying a temporary or even permanent decline from earlier capability and presence. But perhaps the change is in the...
The power of metaphor
He visibly changed in front of our eyes... From a barely there, fidgeting, rather evasive character, he became a solid, three-dimensional, distinctly present person with solid eye contact and a...
How demanding is too demanding?
In some relationships, being demanding is (arguably) required to achieve the highest performance—for a coach with an athlete, for a leader with a team, or for a customer with a supplier. A little...
Will they do better with an adversarial approach?
Some prefer an adversarial approach to doing business. They think they’ll do better if they have more room to maneuver at arms length; more opportunity to a present favorable message if they...
The making of Gold Medal performance
Watching interviews with Gold Medal winners and other Olympic high performers, it's striking how most of them seem thoroughly pleasant and even ordinary people - very far from the sometime...