Japanese puzzle boxes require three steps to fully open them In coaching, I have learned that there are three "boxes", three levels of Context where one can help a client around their leadership and their business. For simplicity, let's call them: Box 1: Business...
"..the objective of economic policy should be collective well-being: how happy and healthy a population is, not just how wealthy a population is." ~ Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, TED Summit, Edinburgh, July 2019 As UK government and politics, in...
Today I learned a lesson about telling people what I want. I hope that by sharing this and a few connected thoughts I encourage you to tell people what YOU want. Yesterday my post was: "Business Strategy Coaching – a simple secret" In that post I shared what I felt...
What if I could give you a secret to elevating your business strategy that takes less time, costs less, whilst at the same time engaging and energising your top people? The secret starts with believing that the answers to elevating your strategy already sit within...
Today is a consciously quiet day for me, with absolutely nothing planned, a day out to rest in the middle of a busy period. So, a reminder today that sometimes less is more. I'll model that by making this one of my shortest daily posts ever. What could you do less of...
Learning something new can give you new found energy. I love to learn, yet not every time I attend a talk or workshop or training to I feel I learned something new. Thinking about this, if training is receiving information, learning is absorbing and embedding it in a...
When it is too hot, come up with creative solutions. wonderful image (c) MarketingMonks So, as I write this to post at 8am it is Thursday July 25th at 4pm and 36c. However, though my post for Thursday July 25th was "Too hot to think", somehow I found a creative...
Today at 8 am it is 27c in London and forecast to hit 39c by mid-afternoon. That is simply too hot. No air conditioning. I can't think in this heat. I could make up all kinds of cool metaphors for business and leadership, the beginning of one coming around the...
Should offices shut down when it is too hot? If your staff are going to work less effectively and have a miserable time getting to and from work and being at work in a city not designed for high temperatures, consider this. overheated trains in nearly 40c temperatures...
Do you send emails after 5:30 pm? Suggestions on business email from "It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work". "It doesn't have to be crazy at work" is a book full of nuggets of wisdom that can change your life and that of those who work with you. Seriously, every single...
Learn to do something different and add to your current skillset in work or life. This week a friend and his son are taking beginners skateboarding lessons each day. Learning something totally different and unrelated to your work or prior skills in life is now...
"Innovation = doing things differently and doing different things" I distilled this some years ago into my definition of innovation. Innovation at work is really "buzzy" these days, with book after book, TED talk after TED talk about how we can be more creative and...
"Your mind is like a parachute: If it isn't open, it doesn't work." Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 astronaut Today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, July 20th, 1969. It all began with the open mind and huge vision of one man. On May 25, 1961,...
Connect with others to add meaning and purpose, then create and build the impact of scale. A line from Nilofer Merchant's recent LI article: "Don’t Be The Lonely Only" reads: "when connected people can do what once only large organizations could; the connectedness of...
In the environment of intolerance and racism, speak out, take action, don't be silent. Just when we thought the level of intolerance and racism in countries like the US and the UK could not get any worse, over the last few days the US President has not only lowered...
"You are only as good as your people and you are the greatest asset we have. You are our high performance system." - Chelsea Warr Recently I had a check-in call with a long-time contact who is a shooting star rising up in one of the world's top financial institutions....
A key element of leadership is to stretch and grow (both yourself and your organisation). Sometimes that comes with the risk of failure and so pain. Today a guest post from my friend Christine Locher, fellow coach and all-around learned soul! A key element of...
This photo is of the three bridges across the River Forth outside Edinburgh. Furthest away is the seminal Forth (rail) Bridge, nearest is the brand new Queensferry Crossing, which somewhat hides the Forth Road Bridge, opened in 1964. At that time it was the first...
"Sleep is a natural performance enhancing drug. Tragic how many people think they can get by on 7 hours or less." @DHH My two oldest sons were elite swimmers. As teenagers then university students, it may have seemed to outside observers that they were...
Data = Noise Data + Context = Information Experimentation + Error = Experience Information + Experience = Knowledge Knowledge + Humility = Wisdom Recently Fergus Connolly posted this on Twitter. I love following learnings on elite performance in sport and Fergus is an...
Take a look at the right forearm of this swimmer. One word, written in marker pen: CLARITY This photo popped up this week as a Facebook memory for me from several years ago when this particular swimmer was at an international meet looking to make a time that would...
The market for something to believe in is infinite. Yesterday I had one of my regular catch up calls with my friend Bruce Peters. In life, I love deep conversations that get to the heart of things. Every time I talk to Bruce we uncover new things that get to the heart...
What happens when one faces the "blank page"? Specifically, what do you do when you are faced with that "blank screen" when you just don’t know what to do next? At well over 600 daily posts on this site since I started that discipline, most days I love to write, some...
How often are we truly present. Remember to keep the presence of mind in beautiful places, such as out in the water. Treading water in the Caribbean sea. Nowhere to be, nothing to do. First time I've done that in a long time. Realised in the moment that I wouldn't...
It takes more than awareness to lead to action. It takes that continuous and iterative process of alignment and engagement to lead to enrolment. Another short blog from Seth this week: Awareness or action? Some projects suffer from a lack of awareness. If only more...
A spiral of openness and trust spiral, where both elements feed each other to higher and higher heights. Trust is at the core of all relationships. My underlying theme on this site I call #OpenLeadership, as being Open is at the heart of what I see as the new paradigm...
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...
Business is simple, people are complex This phrase is one I used a lot in working with leaders around transformative change. Business can be boiled down to numbers, process, metrics, budgets. Business can be complicated, but it can also be understood, so distilled to...
I'm in Grenada on holiday right now. In 2004 they were smashed by the same Hurricane (Ivan) that went on to hit Cayman. Due to natural disasters as well as global geopolitics a key industry (agriculture) took a devastating hit and is still, fifteen years later,...
A grey and stormy day at one of the most remote hotels I've ever stayed at. After breakfast I remark to the owner: "this feels like a wonderful day to do nothing". "Isn't every day a wonderful day to do nothing?", he replied. "That sounds like a 'Winnie the Pooh'...
It is 45km (28 miles) from the airport in Grenada to the remote and beautiful Petite Anse hotel.There are 53 speed bumps. How long would you figure it would take to drive there on the main road around the Caribbean side of this island of 100,000 people? Perhaps you'd...
David Epstein's "Range" shows how a generalist can triumph in a world full of specialists. Succeed in any field by developing broad interests and skills. Summer is upon us in the Northern Hemisphere, so many will be looking for books to read. So, I just found out...
British psychologist Raymond Cattell introduced the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence in the early 1940s. Over 45? Feeling increasingly irrelevant at work? I recently read a wonderful long essay in The Atlantic by Arthur Brooks entitled: "Your...
Today reposting a blog from Seth Godin. That I write every day is down to Seth, who has done this for literally decades. Inspiration, sir. As I've written about before, "Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication" and "Less is More". Don't overwrite. Simply write....
Today is the fourth anniversary of the passing of Ed Percival, my greatest mentor in life. Ed taught me so much. As a homage to him, the page on this site focussed on potential clients assessing what they are seeking in a coach and how I work with my clients is called...
So this past weekend a friend had asked me to join him for a charity ride in the countryside. "140km", he said, "it'll be no problem", he said, "not too many hills", he said. The longest ride I'd done in several years was less than 45km, but hey, I go to spin class...