Horizontal Leadership is leading in an inclusive, empowered and trusting way. Sometime over this summer, I will collate some key blog posts and models under a header of #OpenLeadership as a tab on this site. Open Leadership is a move beyond command and control, a move...
Language, truth and trust, as relates to a recent blog by Seth Godin on different types of truth. One of the things I love about London is the ease of attending talks and workshops and learning from amazing intellects. Last week was one such occasion where I went to a...
Would you give your business away? Well, Julian Richer just did. Let's look at that story today. This week, on the same day that the Institute of Fiscal Studies announced their major new study on inequalities, the IFS Deaton Review, Julian Richer announced he is...
from a wonderfully indepth powerpoint deck by Cristiano Damiani Vasconcellos Language is powerful. Stunningly so. The language we use about ourselves and others can fundamentally change our perception of reality. Tip of the hat (or, as cyclists say, chapeau) to David...
Sir Alex Ferguson in customary pose, yelling at his players Sir Alex Ferguson, one of the greatest football coaches, was famous for "giving his players the hairdryer treatment", ie yelling at them. Today a repost of a wonderful interview this week by Kieran Shannon of...
Today am feeling inspired by James Timpson of Timpson and his leadership. By doing what is right, he has also found that this has driven both loyalty in his colleagues and making using Timpson a conscious choice for more and more customers. So, what was it he has...
Coach Gregg Popovich running a timeout for the San Antonio Spurs Imagine that coach watching the game. Naturally, he can see many things he could advise individuals and the group to do, to change, to stop doing. However, the best coaches do one thing consistently in...
Collaborative Leadership: "the process of engaging collective intelligence to deliver results across organisational boundaries when ordinary mechanisms of control are absent" Oxford Leadership - Collaborative Leadership White Paper, 2011 The other day a dear friend of...
David McWilliams, here seen at the best party of the year for Economist and Economics geeks, Kilkenomics, is one of my favourite writers. Today I share his latest post, "Can Bernie Sanders fix the broken American Dream?" and a few bullet points on why I love the way...
"..entrepreneurialism can’t be taught and the library full of books attempting to teach it are a waste of time. Short of travelling back in time and putting your childhood self through some sort of trauma you cannot ‘become’ an entrepreneur." The 17th and closing...
picture credit Sloww.co Today I am reminded of the difficulty of seeing ourselves how others see us and the power of critical thinking both for that and to truly see and understand others. These are universal challenges for each of us. For those who lead others, the...
When my two oldest sons were very young, one summer we visited great friends in Norway. One day my friend and I took his two sons and mine, all aged between about 3 and 8, for the over two-hour drive from Oslo to their cottage on a lake for an overnight trip. It was a...
“Before you play two notes, learn how to play one note, y’know? And don’t play one note unless you’ve got a reason to play it.” ~ Mark Hollis Yesterday Mark Hollis died. He was the leader of Talk Talk. Their music really touched me in different ways, then he stepped...
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards" ~ Soren Kierkegaard Today a simple thought around living life. Learn from the past, analyse it, study it all you will so you can learn more about yourself, others, your business, your leadership....
"Look for the spaces between" This week I am at the Modern Elder Academy in Baja. On the first day, one of the directors, Christine Sperber, took time to give us a "level set", positioning the week for us. One key phrase that resonated for me is that she encouraged...
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a powerful tool for understanding what drives us. I've used it often including this post on "At risk versus taking risks". My friend and business hero, Chip Conley, is a leading expert on Maslow through his work in taking Maslow's...
Despite the tongue in cheek humour of "The Greatest", Muhammad Ali, today a simple video clip from one of the greatest athletes of all time showing just how humble they are. I have written several times on humility of leaders around the phrase: “How you do anything…...
Yesterday I wrote: "Purpose and the Corporation" and wrote: "I ask businesses I work with to consider a different type of triple bottom line: Purpose People Planet Yes, I always ask them to focus on the Profit they will make, yet Profit, to me, is the outcome of a...
Just over a month ago I wrote first about Steph Curry and his actions to empower girls. Today I find myself sharing another example of leadership off the court from this athlete, and again from an article he wrote in The Players Tribune, a quite remarkable publication...
BBC just put out two one hour shows called "Billy Connolly Made in Scotland" (link here for those in the UK). Billy Connolly represents a line in the sand. Comedy in the UK was either before Billy or after Billy. He is, simply, the "Big Yin". Today sharing one...
Trust is at the heart of every relationship in life, personal and professional. How do we build trust? Sometimes we need to take a lot of time and patience to build trust, we analyse, assess, look for evidence and proof points. Sometimes, though, perhaps Hemingway's...
Today I'm recommending to you to choose to "be so good they can't ignore you", and to back that up by having people in your life, including mentors, that believe in you even more than you believe in yourself "Be so good they can't ignore you" ~ Steve Martin Steve...
Ma – thinking about the space between. Thanks to @alansmlxl for his thoughts on Ma, as well as Stevie Ray Vaughn and @nilerodgers
As we reach the end of another year, we tend to reflect on the words of Robert Burns of "auld lang syne", or "old long since", or simply "of days gone by". In such reflections we tend to reflect on those who have left us in the past year. For me, one of those losses...
Back in the early 2000s, I took on the opportunity (never a challenge, always an opportunity) to lead a resort in the Cayman Islands. I began by looking to best practice and saw that the top hotel brands in the world had an unerring focus on their internal culture and...
Photo credit Rhonda Curry At this time of year, the Western World slows down, pauses for the Christmas Season. We step off our hamster wheel of life and work, of things to do, deadlines to meet etc. In that world, has anybody ever used the line "my client is not in a...
"how you do anything is how you do everything" When, years ago, I was intensely involved in the development of self and my skills in learning to be a coach, I heard this phrase and it deeply resonated with me and still does. I've already written around this phrase...
An English language idiom is: "don't play with fire, you might get burned" Let's flip that today, inspired by this quote from Steven Kotler: "As children, we are taught not to play with fire, not how to play with fire." I saw this quote out of the blue the other day...
The opening words of the homepage on this site are: Who are you without your title? Command-and-control leadership is losing its grip. A new way of thinking is emerging: leadership that embraces change as constant, encourages individual thought, relies on intuition...
Microsoft just became the most valuable company in the world. This made big headlines, though very few people know the name of their CEO and few of the articles truly got into why his radically different style of humble leadership has been at the heart of that...
Listening for energy. Tai Jin, one of your most powerful tools to develop as a leader.
As leaders, sometimes we push ourselves hard. Work hard, be busy, lead by example etc. We often then push our people to think, decide, do, deliver. In the #OpenLeadership model, I refer to this as #Warrior mode. It can work for a time yet ultimately depletes others....
Kindness as Leadership. Learning from Mr Rogers
My favourite business artist is Hugh McLeod, @hughcards on Twitter. Love this one. Change comes from feelings, not rationality. Feelings connect us to why we would choose to change. "When you get clear on the WHY, the HOW is easy" I see organisational change so often...
This is the look of a batter striking out swinging. This is a picture from the book, "The Science of Hitting" by Ted Williams, where Ted broke the strike zone into 77 baseball-sized circles, colour-coding each one based on where he had the best chance to hit the ball....
This week I brought you wisdom for Leadership from the sagest of sage bears (apologies to Paddington, who comes a close second), Winnie the Pooh. Today, I bring you the legend that is Eric Cantona, who I also wrote about...