There is real skill required to build warm relationships at the same time as you manage people to achieve high levels of delivery. It is easy to be either a nice ineffectual leader or a ruthless driver. It is a lot more difficult to drive and build appropriate relationships at the same time. And this [...]
Most organisations use leadership in teams to achieve goals Even with the best technology, most efficient processes, and most exciting ideas, you ultimately implement your strategy through people. Probably people in teams! which means you will need leadership. Unless you have these guys at your disposal: Teams will allow you to undertake larger, more complex [...]
Your assumptions can destroy you. And everyone else! On October 27, 1962 eleven US Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph dropped practice depth charges on a Soviet Foxtrot class submarine, B59, in international waters. This was at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Unknown to the US Navy, the submarine carried [...]
Picture from Silvio Roli on Railpictures.net Setting strategy can be complex. Organisations carry out complex analyses of who they are and how they can make the most of opportunities. The plan should be simple. The best teams know a few things they always ‘MUST’ do and a few things they know they must ‘NEVER’ do. [...]
The real truth behind values-based change My friend Jane runs a business in which she has a handyman visiting client houses. Time and cost management are critical. One day while I was visiting, the handyman came in from a job. He had to return to the same house with equipment he had forgotten the first [...]
Your values govern the face your organisation presents to the world when you are not there Conversaction Newsletter - Week 3 March 2015 In his book, ‘Leading Teams’, J Richard Hackman tells a delightful story about highly engineered customer service. After three aborted take-offs, a flight he was on was finally cancelled. As the aircraft [...]
William Cobbett once used a smoked (therefore reddish brown) herring to distract a pack of hounds from the scent of a hare. Then on 14 February 1807 he used the incident to criticise the English Press who had mistakenly reported the defeat of Napoleon calling it a ‘political red herring’. And so the term ‘Red [...]
How is this for an impressive termite mound? (Image is from the posting by S.C. Lougheed.) “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest” Proverbs 6:6 Not strictly 'ants' but OK [...]
A mason was asked “what are you doing?” He said “can’t you see I am chipping stone” and carried on hammering in a lacklustre way. When asked the same question, another mason replied “I am building a cathedral” and continued hammering joyfully away. I have always been a little sceptical of this story. It sounds [...]
Just about every board-game is developed around a simple principle. We love a sense of progress and are bothered by setbacks. We get a kick out ascending a ladder and are frustrated by having to slide down a snake. Dr Anna Tarrant from whom I took the illustration has used this principle quite creatively in [...]
