This post is about making decisions – what to consider and what you should be aware of. Every now and then, we come to a fork in the road. We need to decide – which road will I take? These are decisions with significant consequences but there are also smaller, more transactional choices we make…
To be optimistic doesn’t mean you’re in denial about life’s unpleasant realities. Optimistic people aren’t immune from struggles, obstacles, and disappointments. Along the road to success, we all find obstacles that block our pathway. Sometimes they are inside us – like the fear of failure, insecurity, anxiety, or lack of motivation to get started. And…
How many times have you encountered a change that doesn’t make a difference? I have seen many such changes. There’s lots of noise and activity, but, in the end, no difference. In physics, such changes are associated with high levels of symmetry. Take a sphere for example. You can spin it around and turn…
Failure. It’s not a four-letter word but it’s still a dirty word in many places. From this starting point, we could explore attitudes towards failure and the importance of psychological safety as a key cultural element. But we won’t. Instead, let’s explore why failure happens. In the September 18, 2018 edition of Forbes, Harvard professor…
Whether a business survives and thrives depends on how creatively it adapts to future demands, not how well it has performed in the past. Adapting to an unknown and unpredictable future requires agility. Becoming more agile in how we think and work is the best preparation we can make right now for whatever the future brings. Where…
Getting to Know Agility What do we know about the strategic creation of agile organisations? In 2014, Schulling reported on a 25 year-long study into this question. Here are 6 insights from that study. Develop an inquiry focus. Don’t base decisions on assumed knowledge but foster an attitude of inquiry. Encourage diverse views. For most…
The Meaning of Management What does management mean to you? What did it mean in the past and how has it changed over time? Social Change Before the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700’s, most people lived and worked in small communities. The corporations or government enterprises we are familiar with today…
How do you boost performance in your organisation? Do you use incentives to inspire people to perform better? Or perhaps you rely on performance reviews to provide feedback, maintain accountability, and set new targets. Sure, all these can have their place, but they also have their limits. Incentives don’t inspire everyone, and they can create…
It’s often said that people are your greatest asset. But not all people equally. For instance, Google found that 90% of their teams’ performance was produced by just 10% of their people. And we’re all familiar with the 80/20 Rule. Some people are star performers – the ones you want to keep and the ones…
Swiss adventurer, psychiatrist, and author, Bertrand Piccard, makes a very interesting observation about how most people approach life. He says, “To construct our life, we’re going to need to learn some strategies, but in reality, what we learn instead are visions of the world.” He claims that most of us don’t figure out the strategies…
