Bite Sized Business Tips
2 minute reads for the values-led business leader
Snippets for purpose and values-led business leaders about meeting our responsibilities to our team, customers, owners, communities and suppliers. Context is everything, so these aren't dogma - rather a stimulus for thought. Subscribe below.
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Pope Francis on Leadership
I'm sad to see the demise of Pope Francis. I'm not Christian. But I bought into much of the Christianity that he stood for.That said ...This is a thought about business... So within that context, I'm left wishing that more CEOs, especially the tech and financial services titans, had read ...
Move fast and break things? Yeahbut
"Move Fast and Break Things" - sorry, but no. We should have learned that lesson from the Great Gatsby (100 years old this year). This mantra became all the rage emanating from Facebook, and feels like it's become the modus operandi of some of our governments. Which has thrown an ...
Trump shows us how wrong we got it on Profit and Purpose
A few years back, when talking about purpose in business started to become in vogue, a vocal brigade within the purpose zealots were touting a dangerous mantra. "Do purpose, and it will end up making you more profitable". Within those circles, it was a foundational belief. But I had real ...
Leadership is Light
Leadership is light.Where are the role models? They're certainly not in charge of our political parties in the UK.The "leaders" of both main parties are on the wrong side of the largest environmental and humanitarian crises today.The opportunity to be brave, to paint a future for generations, to secure a ...
What matters?
It's my birthday today. Always a time for reflection and looking ahead. But this year, as I watch thousands of my countryfolk being killed, and over a million of them being forcibly displaced from their homes while our governments here in the West support it either through inaction or encouragement, ...
What you do about people determines performance and culture
Your being nice might be the thing that stops your business from shining."The Law of Crappy People states: For any title level in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title. The rationale behind the law is that the other ...
GPS Has Made your Leadership Team Worse
GPS does 2 things for us. It helps us find the way to where we want to go. And it estimates roughly when we'll get there. But the issue is that as we are increasingly finding digital ways to get definitive answers, many are expecting to have those definitive answers ...
If it didn’t work out last time, why would you do the same again?
If you try something and it works out badly, would you learn to do it differently next time?Oh the tedium of generic questions.Because the answer certainly shouldn't be an automatic "yes".Or "no".Because the context is everything.I gave a CEO I was working with advice once not to sack a member ...
The maximisation of profit is the root of all evil
All? Maybe not entirely. But it is certainly the root of the evils which have impacted us most. And that's why your company should avoid this as a primary objective. But here's what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that profit is evil. In fact, within a business context, profit ...
Why the CEO isn’t taking your contribution seriously
If you're in a Senior Leadership Team, your CEO should welcome your contribution to the business at large. But you may find that contribution isn't always welcome. Here are the two key reasons I've seen this happen. 1) The CEO is a closed book and thinks they have all the ...
Coming back to perfection
Summer is fantastic. But also often quite disruptive.Many of the CEOs I work with find that business gets a little bumpy over summer. Routines slip. Sales pipelines slip. People go on holiday (how dare they!) and however smooth (or not) the business was before, it's a little bumpier now.And invariably, ...
If you’re stressed at work, might you be better suited to another job?
Too much stress for anyone at work is unsustainable, and shouldn't be normalised.But if there is regularly too much stress, it's not necessarily the employer's fault. Sometimes, hard to say, but you may just be in the wrong job.I've run and advised consultancies for most of my life. Consulting is ...
