When the path ahead is steep, small steps get you further. Camino life lesson number one.
I started climbing the Pyrenees yesterday. It was steep and long, and considerably harder than I was expecting. At times I questioned whether I could go on as the uphill road was seemingly never ending. When debriefing the climb at the end of the day, a hiker more seasoned than I asked if I was […]
Are we all on the spinning carousel?
There’s an old Alfred Hitchcock movie called ‘Strangers on a Train’ with a famous scene involving a fairground carousel that starts spinning out of control. The carousel’s operator is shot, causing the ride to speed up to dangerous levels, leaving the passengers to cling on for dear life or be flung off. I was left wondering […]
If it’s not a ‘hell yes’, it’s a no.
I was chatting to a client recently who was torn on whether to appoint a candidate to a key role. There was something holding them back from making the offer, a niggling feeling that perhaps the person wasn’t quite right. Would they take the risk of appointing them, or follow their intuition? I love the […]
Why I love working with entrepreneurs
I was at a business dinner recently and started chatting to a corporate executive who was sitting next to me. The conversation that ensued is one that I seem to be having a lot lately. This executive had just been passed over for promotion with very minimal feedback, and was questioning their career. I asked […]
Virtually accelerating the future of work
With Melbourne now in another lock down and working remotely continuing for the foreseeable future, we’re all having to get more comfortable and creative with technology. At the same time that we’re feeling like we can’t do one more Zoom call, we’re being asked to embrace it even further as we grapple with how to […]
Some of the best leadership advice from ‘Corona-cation’
There’s no doubt about it, this global pandemic is changing the face of humanity and leadership forever. We are seeing it play out now in politics (both here and overseas), at a community level and in business. Today we are witnessing the best and worst of leadership on the world stage. And we are seeing […]
Leadership for unusual times.
We’ve been disrupted. In boardrooms all over Australia, we’ve been planning for inevitable disruption for years. But nothing could have prepared us for what is unfolding now in terms of its scale, reach, human impact, and economic consequences. Instead of the expected disruptive plays, we’ve been disrupted by a microscopic piece of genetic material surrounded […]
Are you changing the world at work?
I was running an event recently and I ducked into a florist[1] to arrange some flowers for the tables. I was in a rush and hoped to be in and out in five minutes. Thirty minutes later I was still there, captivated and inspired by the backstory of the owner and why she and her […]
The Power’s in the Passion
I had just finished a speaking engagement recently when a man came up to me to ask a question. His question was: “How can I change the culture of my company when I’m not senior enough?” What he was really asking me was how do I drive change from the bottom up when I don’t […]
Driving cultural change? Focus on the little things.
I remember many years ago reading Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Tipping Point’ and being fascinated by the story about the graffiti and fare-evading on the trains in New York City in the mid ‘80s, as a tipping points for violent crime[1]. As the story goes, every night the trains would be sprayed with graffiti and fare evasion […]