Smart and savvy, my friend was utterly taken aback when a business venture she had poured her passion and time into recently sputtered to an acrimonious end. She’s far from alone. Statistics variously reveal 12-month failure rates for startups as anything up to a whopping 95%. Leaving aside what constitutes a...
Celebrity chef George Calombaris arrives at the Downing Centre court complex in Sydney on Wednesday, January 31, 2018. Source: AAP Image/Daniel Munoz. When George Calombaris first reported underpaying workers he likely didn’t expect it would lead his organisation into administration. Promises are like that. You often don’t see the ramifications of breaking them until...
Along with people across Australia and the world, I’m watching, horrified, while fires raze large chunks of wilderness and towns. In the wake of disasters of this magnitude, people want to do something, and in our helplessness, one of the first places we turn is raising money and donating. And how we...
So many of my conversations right now circle around, or go back to, issues of the organisation’s culture. People struggle with it because you can’t treat culture as a project. It’s never a settled state, you’re always working on it. Part of the unheroic work I talk about. Every action and...
Cult-like cultures are alluring and powerful, right up to when they aren’t. There’s a growing pile of people who, inflated by messianic zeal, march their organisations off a cliff. Adam Neumann, Travis Kalanick and Elizabeth Holmes are recent high-profile examples, but it is hardly a new phenomenon, or even one only...
People making demands of a company to act differently isn’t a new story. However, the nature of what they’re asking for is shifting.In a Bloomberg article sent to me by Nancy Hellmrich (@getnance), people working for furniture maker Wayfair had walked off the job because their company is doing business...
A day-long discussion on Twitter got started when a follower posted “I’m interested to know how many companies do you guys consider yourself loyal to?” Seeing I was in the mood to tussle, I replied, “ok, I’ll play, but first how do you define loyalty?” Back and forth we went until we...
While driving to an appointment recently, a radio ad broke past my thoughts about the week ahead and what I was going to make for dinner. At first, it was annoying. Over and over it repeated: “A faulty airbag can kill you. A faulty airbag can kill you. A faulty airbag...
John (not his real name) was the image of a successful consultant. Neat hair, pale blue shirt under a dark blue suit. A mutual friend had introduced us and over good coffee, we shared a bit about what we do. It was all going pretty well, then John proudly said, “I always encourage the...
A note about expectations popped into my Linkedin feed this week. The author Matt Watkinson shared a seven-point list for how customers come by them.It covered a lot of things, however, sitting underneath any list is a necessary step too many organisations shy away from - saying what they can or can’t,...