Can we lead from our comfort zone?

January 17 2019

As a new year kicks off, thoughtful leaders are taking a moment or two to consider how they can lead better in 2019. It could be people skills, communication, strategy and tactics, achieving business outcomes more effectively, stakeholder partnerships – there’s always something (and if not, a review or check-in with your team will help you find a few). But, knowing what we would ideally improve, and doing it, are two different things. Sometimes, the culprit is the good old… Read more »

Does culture REALLY eat strategy for breakfast?

May 22 2018

When around 70-80% of efforts around ‘change strategies’ fail to realise the gains they set out to achieve, it’s not just about poor implementation of a brilliant idea! Perhaps, culture is the real culprit… The famous ‘what eats what’ notion has been attributed to Peter Drucker, originating the phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” somewhere back in C20. Sometimes ‘lunch’ replaces ‘breakfast’, but the point remains the same. No matter how good your strategy is, your organisational culture is more… Read more »

OMG! Did you get that offer?

November 4 2015

“OMG, OMG, OMG!!!!!” Yep, that was the reaction recently when we got an offer of a CEO position. I use the term ‘we’ here, although my involvement was very much in the background. In reality this was about the success, in a competitive job application process, of a focused and committed coaching client. The triple “OMG…” was a direct quote from my client’s partner, as they sat back and celebrated on the evening of the day the offer came in…. Read more »

It’s ‘Performance Management’, not footsteps in a dark alley!

September 10 2015

The sound of footsteps… Being told ‘You’re going into performance management’ is typically about as much fun as hearing footsteps behind you in a dark alley. And neurological research demonstrates that the physical impact is similar – the ‘fight or flight’ response is pretty common. But I always get concerned for another reason when I hear that someone is about to be ‘Performance Managed’. This paints the picture of performance management as the big bogeyman of workplaces. And while often… Read more »

Four “ok, bad and ugly” methods of leadership (and how to avoid them).

August 7 2014

  Reviewing leader performance – always astounding After posting recently on LinkedIn on the theme of transformational leadership, and finding a huge level of interest in the topic and some brilliant feedback on the post, I’m prompted to explore a little deeper, picking up just a couple of the themes that came through in the comments. I wanted to outline what might be happening when things go wrong for a leader, and how this can show up as an under-use… Read more »

An evil plan – not one of the 5 key characteristics of effective leadership!

July 29 2014

Bad news does travel. At a recent breakfast meeting I chatted with a CEO who reflected, uncomfortably but critically, on another leader in his field. This other CEO is apparently losing the respect of peers through behaviours that clash significantly with the respected culture and values of their industry. My companion felt (quite correctly) that even a half-good recruitment process would have pointed out some of the potential dangers of this appointment in advance. To deepen the problem, the board… Read more »

Can you triple performance using organisational health?

April 17 2014

We’ve always thought there must be a great success secret somewhere, and here it is in the form of a recipe! But how do you know you have the right formula? McKinsey’s latest research from more than 800 organisations globally might just reveal the answer.   New research by Mckinsey suggests that the performance payoff from organisational health is unexpectedly large. Companies have four distinct “recipes” to achieve it. Performance-based organisational health is the capacity to deliver superior financial and operating performance –… Read more »