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When Two Strangers Met
Once upon a time, there lived two people on either side of a small village: Miss Strategy and Mr Tactics. Each of them lived alone and were unknown to each other. To the outside world, Miss Strategy was one of those inspirational types.…
Posted on February 13, 2020That Round and Round, Busy-But-Getting-Nowhere Kind of Work
It's already February (Happy Valentines Day by the way) and I'm writing on this topic. It doesn't seem to matter what time of year it is for those who are involved in a leadership capacity in busy work environments but too many tasks with…
Posted on February 06, 2020Aborting Strategy Work for the Ease of Tactical Execution
Planning is relatively easy. Come up with a bunch of tactics, assign them to people for execution, keep them accountable for results and progress is hopefully being made. However, in the absence of a strategic direction, tactical…
Posted on January 30, 2020Efficiency. Converting Wasted Labor into Surplus Time
I recently reviewed my efficiency and labour intensity across my business and identified one primary area of waste related to marketing. One activity I do weekly takes around five hours to complete and was tedious, to say the…
Posted on January 20, 2020The Customer Disservice Department
I am a member of the Europcar Privilege Elite Program. Due to an issue I was having with booking a car, I called the Customer Service Department and was told that due to the nature of my request, I had to email (they don't take calls) the…
Posted on January 07, 2020Failing Forward
John Maxwell wrote a brilliant book some years ago called Failing Forward but often, we see failure as a backward motion. I heard a story about champion ice skaters who, when falling on the ice, knew they were pushing their current limits…
Posted on December 17, 2019The Reward Is In The Writing
As my newsletter Mindful Motivation enters its fifth year, I have been reflecting on its origin and its meaning for both myself and those of you who read it, of which I thought I would share here with you. Mindful Motivation was born…
Posted on December 10, 2019When Crap Rains On Your Best Laid Plans
I read a story about a staff get together last week at Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide. As the physiotherapists were meeting they heard a gurgling noise above. To their surprise, the ceiling ended up caving in, dumping a load of raw…
Posted on December 04, 2019Soul Weather
Years ago when going through a dark spot, a psychologist gave me a useful strategy. Every day I would give myself a “mood rating” between 1 and 10—1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. I followed this process long after I came out…
Posted on November 27, 2019The Expertise - Teachability Model
At a recent workshop on Adaptable Leadership, I presented a four-quadrant model (below) that I developed to capture the relationship between an employee's expertise—associated to their job-related ability—and then the degree to which they…
