My Library
People are my library, my writing inspired by what I learn: ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and sometimes some eclectic whimsy for good measure, all centred around #OpenLeadership. At the heart of all of this is that I write to share learnings and to discover my thoughts. Over the years i have written (mostly) daily, over 2000 posts and 1,000,000 words (that last part blows my mind, tbh!). Enjoy browsing.
Innovation Inbuilt
Read the small print on the bottom right of this screenshot. 1,725 units built in 40 weeks. That's two high-rise towers, the taller being 45 storeys high. "Innovation inbuilt" indeed!. This astonishing project took shape at an inconceivably rapid pace right next to...
Innovation Inbuilt
Read the small print on the bottom right of this screenshot. 1,725 units built in 40 weeks. That’s two high-rise towers, the taller being 45 storeys…
Lockdown sucks…so be empathetic
Lockdown sucks. Truly. Apologies for some London-centric posting of late, it may not feel relevant to friends and family in Cayman where they are Covid-free, or even the USA where very little of the country is under restrictions, but when you live in London, we are in...
Sharing a moment of beauty
I sense that many of us feel the need for distractions from the winter of Covid. Regular readers will know I focus on presence and, linked to that, often I look at beauty. One moment of beauty came at the weekend, when I went outside for a while and saw the wondrous...
Be Like Water
London, January 2021. Lockdown 3.0. Depth of winter. Covid raging. I have barely left my home for three weeks other than to go for winter walks. Yes, this is s***, it truly is. There is value in acknowledging we are in what a friend calls "the s*** zone". Once we...
How to speak on Zoom without saying a word
So, how do you speak on Zoom without saying a word? Well, back in November I came across a great idea, cards to communicate when on group video calls. In that post I wrote: In the early days of email, we had no emoticons, but we did have text equivalents (hence the...
Leading through Lockdown
This image depicts how this lockdown feels to me. The other day I had to drive down a motorway on an essential errand. Yes, the signs tell you to stay at home, save lives, protect teh NHS. In addition, it is the darkest time of year, plus virtually every car on the...
Making your people feel Enabled around Constraints
A core "why" for my daily writing is to share learnings, so, yesterday I had an inspiring conversation with a business leader in the USA, who had come across a post I wrote called: "Enabling Constraint" and was intrigued by the idea embedded in the term. One thought I...
Are you ready to be supported in 2021?
Richie Porte supported Chris Froome to win the 2013 Tour de France (see video) Professional road stage cycling is unique in that it is a team sport in which the glory goes to one individual, to a lesser exten to the team, then the other team riders are often forgotten...
Kokoro – align your heart, mind and spirit
Kokoro - The intersection of heart, mind, & spirit that's a person’s essence, soul, or center. Instead of being treated separately, they are one. In the bleak mid-winterFrosty wind made moan;Earth stood hard as iron,Water like a stone;Snow had fallen, snow on...
Why I am innovating my winter workday and you won’t
Apologies for the provocative title, but I feel this is worth emphasising today at the start of the working year. I'm going to innovate my workday for the darkest and deepest part of this winter of Covid, the first three months of the year. So, I'll begin by telling...
The pleasures of a simple Sunday
“tout le malheur des hommes vient de ne savoir pas se tenir en repos dans une chambre”“All of humanity’s misfortunes stem from man’s inability to stay at rest in a room”From Pensées by Blaise Pascal, written in the 1600s I lived so much of my life filling it with...
I wish you more Glow
This week I walked. For three days in a row, each day I took time to explore the woods and hills around my new home, a total of around 36km (about 22 miles to my metrically-challenged readers) over the three days. No headphones, much randomness, many smiles.When I sat...
What will you Start in 2021?
Like my friend Dani Coleman, one of the most positive people I know (watch or listen to her as a guest last month on #WhatComesNextLive), I truly believe in the power of positivity, including positive language and positive intentions. I therefore reframe the idea of...