Has the time come to revisit the way you set and pursue your goals?

How often do you set a goal for yourself, only to find that progress seems to be slow or non-existent, despite your best efforts? Or perhaps you aren’t clear on exactly what success looks like or how to measure it. Should this be where you’re finding yourself? Take heart knowing it’s not unusual and a […]

Relevance

“In a world where we are drowning in information but starving for wisdom, relevance is not a matter of what we know; it is a matter of how what we know matters to someone else.”1 There are hundreds of books on leadership, and every once in a while a book comes along that provides a […]

Are you in the right mood for decision making?

For Christmas 2019, I was given a set of Sony WH-1000XM3 noise-cancelling headphones by my son, Ryan. He knew I loved listening to music, and that these would be great to take with me on an airplane when travelling for business. They truly are remarkable. I turn them on, and all I hear is music. […]

Lessons from the Top

A leader’s journey is so much more than a collection of experiences or a series of events. It is part of a much larger story or narrative. Presented the right way, a leader’s story not only has the potential to inspire others; it has the ability to provide meaning and context to the present and […]

The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles That Fuel Success and Performance at Work

“We think: If I just get that raise, or hit that next sales target, I’ll be happy. If I can just get that next good grade, I’ll be happy. If I lose that five pounds, I’ll be happy. And so on. Success first, happiness second. The only problem is that this formula is broken.”1 “It […]

The Alliance – Managing Talent in the Networked Age

“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 technologies—well, that’s a company already in the process of dying.”1 Leaders can’t afford not to be in the ‘talent’ business. […]

Are you a business staff are proud to work for?

It’s often only in hindsight that leaders recognize their organizational culture was a major contributing factor to serious failures. This was the case when international pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk risked violating US FDA regulations in the early 2010’s. Such was the seriousness of the case, its insulin was almost banned from the country1. In what […]

Two things natural leaders do differently

For some leaders there is a natural flow to relationship building that has little to do with their technical skill or level of charisma. It is demonstrated in the way they carry themselves, how they relate to others and their ability to speak their mind with both confidence and humility. It’s the result of being […]

Leading from the inside out: Why better people make better leaders

In his book Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life, James Kerr examines what makes the All Blacks one of the most successful teams in the history of sport. One of the core beliefs behind their high-performance culture is ‘better people make better leaders’. 1 Alongside values of character, […]

The subtle way your childhood affects how you lead

We all enter adulthood with thought processes and behaviours learned and adopted from childhood. This is true of every person, whether in a leadership role or not. Children learn and absorb lessons about life through overt teaching by people in their world – parents, grandparents, teachers, peers – and through more subtle ways by observing […]