In 2004, I accepted a VP role for an organization that was expanding globally, and as a result, I was overwhelmed by the number of meetings I was expected to attend!
Frustrated with endless meetings and the lack of decision-making and productivity, it became obvious to me that we didn’t always have the right people in the room, and how this often undermined the outstanding ability of o...
As a child growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s, ‘Gilligan’, ‘Skipper’, the ‘Howells’, ‘Ginger, the movie star’, ‘The Professor’ and ‘Mary Ann’ were familiar names as characters in CBS’ hit television series, Gilligan’s Island.
For 98 episodes the characters looked for a way to get off the island whe...
“The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be” (Paul Valery, 1871-1945)[i].
Much could be said about our changing world—economic volatility, political and civil unrest, epic levels of national debt, corrupt governments and the impact of new technologies on the labor market.
While not exclusively, there is no doubt that the online world has a...
I have observed that for many people it is easy for their focus to shift from serving a need (outward orientation) to serving themselves (inward orientation), often causing a significant issue with the sustainability of their business.
‘Service’ is different depending on the organizational context. For most businesses, ‘service’ has more to do with making profit from ...
Culture significantly influences how the following statements are made, and how people respond to them.
“We should take the initiative”
“We should wait until we are asked for help”
“This could turn out to be a great political manoeuvre”
“Let’s not do anything, as it might be seen as a sign of weakness”
“We should take con...
You won’t agree with everything that Levitt and Dubner present in Freakonomics (2009), but it will make you wonder if you are asking the right questions. [1]
Levitt and Dubner appeal to the person in the street who doesn’t have time to read all of the research available on an area of interest or something significant that appears in a headline. They consider themselves ‘rog...
In my role I get to have lots of conversations with leaders, and over the last few weeks it is clear that there is often a huge gap between making a decision and implementing it.
Inherently, I think most leaders know this to be true when it comes to driving their businesses forward to greater success and managing the tension between strategy and execution.
It is amazing, however, how many...
The economic downturn of 2009 led to unprecedented challenges in global competition that created high levels of anxiety and uncertainty. This significantly affected stakeholder expectations that resulted in organizations tightening their budgets and standards of governance.
As companies tried to do more with less, employees were being asked to carry more load and stress in the midst of decli...
Book Review
The Alliance: Managing Talent in a Networked Age
Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh; Harvard Business Review Press, 2014
A business without loyalty is a business without long-term thinking. A business without long-term thinking is a business that’s unable to invest in the future. And a business that isn’t investing in tomorrow’s opportunities and ...
