It’s been apparent for a while now that the structure of many organisations is one of the causes of the disfunctionality and toxicity that seems to characterise the workplace today. These structures are essentially the same as the ones created during the industrial revolution, designed to meet the needs of the machine age. It doesn’t […] Read More…
I’ve come to the conclusion that organisations are really just a collection of teams, and successful organisations a collection of successful teams. It could be the ‘leadership team’ or a product teams, or a software team or an event team. At every level and in every way, the success is delivered by teams. It’s teams […] Read More…
Leaders and managers are often encouraged to practice ‘active listening’ in order to build their emotional intelligence, get a greater understanding the people they are working with and be better at leading and managing them. It’s a key part of coaching, too, which is something else leaders and managers are being encouraged to do. The […] Read More…
If I ask you to explain what leadership is, it sounds like a simple question, doesn’t it? Go on, then. Answer it. You’ll probably start to think about leaders that you have worked with, the people who led the organisation that you have worked in, or with. Perhaps you’ll think of iconic political leaders like […] Read More…
Sometimes you hear something that is so obvious you wonder what planet you’ve been on all your life not to have realised this yourself. I recently read an interview with Professor Jochen Menges, in which he talked about this thing he has called ‘Emotional Diversity’. As he explained it, “ ‘Happy’ means different things to […] Read More…
Did you notice the shift beginning? It’s like the first crack in the ice-shelf that begins the process that leads eventually to the collapse into the sea. A loud noise rents the air but nothings seems to have happened. The only trace is a small fissure. You wondered if anything happened at all. On August […] Read More…
I’ve never been on a Leadership course so I have just made it up as I went along. I never really aspired to be a ‘leader’, I wasn’t that interested in climbing the greasy pole, I just wanted to get things done and make stuff happen. I found out very quickly that you need to […] Read More…
There are five steps to solving a problem and most people don’t manage to take the first one. That’s why they get stuck in the same situation, because they are failing to address and solve their problems. You see, the first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge that you have the problem in […] Read More…
The fatuousness of Dominic Raab’s argument in the Newsnight item that I talked about in my last blog was at least matched by the disingenuity of Mervyn King, retired Governor of the Bank of England, later in the same item when he said that he was now ‘part of the gig economy’. Yeah, right, Merv. […] Read More…
I caught a bit of Newsnight yesterday evening and there was a film on the future of work, comparing it with 40 years ago (it being the anniversary of the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1989). In it, they visited Shirebrook, a mining community that lost its colliery after the miner’s strike and now has […] Read More…