Purpose: what’s the point?
What's the point of your job? No, seriously, what is the point? How does it make a difference to anything? Why should anyone care? I have asked this question of many of the mid career employees I work with on leadership training programmes, and I can confidently say...
For heaven’s sake, just STOP!
When my wife Charlotte died suddenly and unexpectedly at Easter my auto reflex kicked in. My busyness gene went into overdrive, and I turned into even more of a whirling dervish than usual. Some might say that over the next six months my list of achievements was...
The open plan office. Guaranteed to stifle human interaction.
I recently spent a day working in a client's office. Lucky me. It's a long time since I did so, and I was struck by something rather unnerving. This was an open plan office, with I imagine about thirty people working in it. What struck me was that the majority of the...
What happens when people believe what you believe
A few weeks ago the paperback version of my book "My Job Isn't Working!" was released. You may well already know that, as I have been shouting about it ruthlessly and shamelessly, as a tribute to my wife who passed away suddenly when she shouldn't have, and as a means...
“My job isn’t working!” Might this apply to you?
It's amazing what you can learn over 20 years of working with people in the comparative safety of a training room. When they start to open up and tell you about the challenges they are dealing with, it becomes apparent that "career malfunction" is widespread and it's...
What to say when there aren’t any words
On Easter Saturday morning our alarm went off as usual at 6 am, and I knew something was wrong because my wife didn't turn it off. It took about ten minutes for me to fully register that this was because she was dead. Charlotte had suffered a pulmonary...
The Top Three Dysfunctions of a Meeting
For the last 20 years or so I have been unwittingly researching corporate dysfunctionality through my work in Leadership Development around the world. Over that time, from conversations with thousands of mid career workers, I have noticed a pattern in what causes the...
Have you forgotten how to read, just like the rest of us?
Oh no! I have woken up to a startling and somewhat terrifying realisation. I think I have forgotten how to read. Not totally, of course, but as a result of reading this fantastic article by Michael Harris, I, like him, recognise that I have slipped without noticing...
The Top 3 ways to update your Leadership style
One of the exercises I use most often in my leadership workshops is to split the group into three and ask them to consider what skills and qualities are required of them as leaders, and how this is different to five years ago. They have to agree what they think are...
Dithering for dummies
I'm writing a book. You may well know that by now. It's the most creative and stimulating project I have worked on for several years, and at the same time the most exhausting. This partly explains why you haven't heard from me on the Blog since before Christmas; it...
How to make writing a business book a whole lot easier.
I've just written a business book. I can't tell you how good it feels to type those words. It's called "My Job Isn't Working!", and is essentially the top 10 tools I know people find helpful in dealing with the ever-increasing pressures of being a mid career...
Why Leadership is harder now than it’s ever been.
Leadership skills are a precious resource in the workplace, and there are forces which contrive to make them increasingly scarce. The first and most obvious of these is that Leadership is often time -consuming (taking time to understand other people, to get to know...
Coaching mantra: “Coach. Coach. Coach. Coach some more. Then instruct.”
Business coaching has never been in more demand. And 18 years of working with employees and managers tells me it's never been more scarce. Why's it in such demand? Because coaching is the number one support employees are looking for in their manager. Google carried...
Why should anyone be managed by YOU?
There are plenty of highly competent managers on the planet, and you are no doubt one of them. You manage people because you’re good at it, and you got to where you are by showing the appropriate level of competence in the various disciplines of achieving results...
How not to build a dream team
Google knows quite a bit about us. It probably has as much data on our individual preferences and online behaviours as any other organisation on the planet. It also spends much of its time and energy trying to understand itself. One of its more interesting recent...
"Keep buggering on!" (Churchill): bad idea.
One of Churchill's most famous maxims was a phrase he allegedly used at the start of each day, and at the end of phone conversations: "Keep buggering on!" - KBO. (His pool of female typists used to hear a politer version - KPO - "Keep plodding on." ) It's a phrase...
The slippery path to who knows what?
Last week I bumped into some stark evidence of something potentially very worrying. If what I saw was, as I suspect, symptomatic of what is going on in the workplace, we really are heading down a dangerous path. Sorry to be the harbinger of doom, but I feel a...
Do you suffer from "Sundayitis"?
I used to dread Sunday evenings even more than Monday mornings. On Sunday from about 4pm onwards I used to get a tight feeling in my stomach, thinking about what the coming week was going to be bring me. Mondays were better, because then you knew what you were...
"Keep up, Sit up and Shut up!" The Poor Presenter’s Prayer?
I have to credit my wife with this one. She has been giving me excellent forthright feedback for nearly 40 years, and this morning over breakfast was no exception. She was explaining something to me, and to be honest I was not giving her my wholly undivided...
30 -50 and employed? How much are you hurting?
Over the last 17 years I have spent thousands of days working on Leadership Development in business skills training rooms around the world with people who are what I shall call loosely mid-career. They share with me and each other how they feel about their job, their...
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