“No one should develop a strategy without taking into account the effects of organizational friction. Yet we continue to be surprised and frustrated when it manifests itself. We tend to think everything has gone wrong when in fact everything has gone normally.” This from Stephen Bungay’s excellent book on getting strategy done, “The Art of […]
Management
On Boris, on values, on apologies and on leadership
Liz Truss this morning said in interview that there are more important things to focus on than whether Boris Johnson broke lockdown rules. This debacle is a treasure trove of lessons on values, on apologies, and on leadership. Values I tell all companies I work with to get their values in place, and to make […]
Guaranteed business failure
You can absolutely do things guaranteed to make your business fail. But unfortunately, there aren’t things you can do which are guaranteed to make your business succeed. It is the same asymmetry at play in Seneca’s sage quote that _”an age builds up cities: an hour destroys them. In a moment the ashes are made, […]
The servant leader and my rights
I (and many others) write a lot about the responsibilities of the leader, and what we should be doing to better the lot of our teams and our companies. What I see a lot less written about is the responsibility of that team, of employees to the company. But if you are paid for work, […]
It’s not about empowerment
Leaders should not empower their teams. We should not empower women. We should not empower under-represented minorities. As far back as I can recall, I’ve struggled with this word. Empower, for me, carries deep connotations of giving someone power. Of patronising people with power. But I don’t believe you can give someone power. What you can […]