Bite Sized Business Tips

“Good leaders don’t hide their emotions. Be vulnerable. Be authentic.” Simplistic tosh that continues to do the rounds in the industry that is training the next generation of leaders, and undermining their ability to lead effectively. The challenge is that there is a lot of nuance to this that is ...
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“Out of office” is an interesting game that too many of us play. We set up the autoresponse religiously when we go on holiday, then still surreptitiously check our inbox while we’re away. Before we know it, we get sucked into the inbox and suddenly we’ve lost hours. For some, ...
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In our drive for structure, we should always remember that structure is there to support an outcome, and is not an end goal in its own right. Leaders and consultants alike are guilty of creating frameworks and matrices. McKinsey’s famous MECE (mutually exclusive, completely exhaustive) is a wonderful triumph of ...
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I've been privileged the last couple of days to go with some of my clients to 2 talks about recently launched books. First, Nir Eyal's "Indistractable", which lays the case and an approach to from from distraction to traction. Essentially how to spend our time and attention with more intentionality ...
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You've seen a lot about how purpose is good for profit. It can be. Sometimes it's not. But regardless, pursuing purpose on that basis is a dangerous road to go down. The more we talk about companies needing to lead with purpose and values because this is more profitable (which ...
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Making business decisions can often be really hard. And volumes have been written about the best way to make a business (or life) decision. Those of us looking at what the best exercise to do have likely all heard the truism that the best exercise is the one you'll actually ...
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Treat your team as individuals, rather than your company as a "people business". I've been rereading two books by Oliver Sacks, "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat". Both are wonderful books, as enjoyable in the second reading as they were when I read them first ...
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I've sat in leadership meetings where "the boss" feels a need to ensure that everyone has actions. Strategy sessions where they've visibly mentally scratched around to create something to do. Because that's what a boss does, right? Always has something for their team to do. And so we create high ...
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I'm always astonished by companies that say that culture is important, but do no work on their values. Look after your values, and your culture will follow. A strong set of organisational values, lived by the leadership and reflected in how your company does business will end up creating the ...
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The hardest thing I've had to do professionally was to make people redundant. It can be easy to forget how much harder it is for the person going. If it's unavoidable (and I've resigned over being asked to do it when I believed it was entirely avoidable), then make sure ...
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One of the dangers of our increasingly digital and data-driven world is when managers are encouraged to overuse data. This is especially pernicious for new and upcoming managers, as data becomes a crutch for them to lean on. It robs them of the hard work and opportunity to manage through ...
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Do you swear at work? Often if leaders do, they set a tone. Which is *really* unprofessional. Because people don’t go to work in order to feel like extras in a Tarantino film. But I don't think people go to work to feel like extras in a Mary Poppins film ...
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