I remember the first time I had to deal with a team member who wasn’t meeting the needs of his role. We’d gone through the support, the training, trying to find another role. But ultimately none of that worked. So I took the next step. Which was to sit on it for a few months. […]
Bite Size Business Tips
Is your team telling you what they think or what they think you want to hear?
I had a tough decision to make, and I sought the advice of a senior member of my team. He told me what he thought. As he was more knowledgeable in that space than I was (or ever will be TBH), I went with his advice. It didn’t work out. As we reviewed what happened, […]
Great leaders aren’t overly vulnerable or authentic
“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 lost beneath the headlines, and […]
Don’t Kid Yourself with an Out-of-Office Reply
“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, a reply gets sent out […]
Structure is not your goal
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 the intellect over the real […]