I am often asked by leaders “what’s the one thing I can do?” My return question is most usually: “To do what?” Because it depends. Sometimes there is one thing. More usually there are a series of one things. But organisations seem to be hard-wired to look for a silver bullet....
Information designer Edward Tufte has said “to clarify add detail” and while I appreciate and often use the sentiment, the detail can be the devil. Across many projects I’m involved in I encounter the same thing – organisations are drowning in words. Take a look at any presentation, report, strategy, vision et...
The focus is all to often at the edges. Why are we here? What are we going to do, deliver, say and be? The “how” in the middle gets scant attention by comparison. Of course it doesn’t get totally missed or “what” would never happen. The “how” that gets missed is...
A lot of my articles intersect with Leadership for a simple reason. I quite simply have never seen an organisation with a strong and resilient brand result if it is not driven and supported by the leadership of the organisation. And when I say leadership, I mean literally the chief executive, general...
While plenty of time and attention gets dedicated to trying to find ways to delight customers, a lot less time gets spent on understanding and being consistent with the baseline of experience that all customers get – no matter what. The lack of this basic discipline has been reinforced to me...
People grow and mature over time. But while some behaviours and personality attributes may modify, essential things about us seem to remain mostly unchanged. Author Susan Cain has become the voice of the introverted everywhere thanks to her book Quiet, and in a recent article she tackled the question: “Is it possible for my personality...
People grow and mature over time. But while some behaviours and personality attributes may modify, essential things about us seem to remain mostly unchanged. Author Susan Cain has become the voice of the introverted everywhere thanks to her book Quiet, and in a recent article she tackled the question: “Is it possible for my personality...
During a podcast, author Tim Ferris and Josh Waitzkin, who was the basis for the book Searching for Bobby Fischer, were discussing the necessity of bringing discipline and alignment around the things that you believe.It’s been an emerging theme these past few articles, from last week’s entreaty to not forget...
I’ve been thinking a lot about organisational identity these past few weeks. In particular, a couple of issues that constantly bedevil discussions of core values – how do you know what they are and what should they be? For many organisations, finding them is an experience that feels like a cross...
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about organisational identity these past few weeks and as part of that, organisational values have been on my mind. And in particular a couple of issues that seem to constantly bedevil discussions of values – how do you know what they are and...