Courage in the first instance

A wise teacher once suggested that it requires the same amount of courage to do something difficult, whether you do it instantly or leave it until later.  “Courage in the first instance, not the tenth.”. In a working world that is increasingly relational, where what we do depends on dealing with others, negotiating with others,…

What we need to learn

Bring to mind one of your best working moments.  One of those times when you felt on top of the world, when you were just ‘flowing’ or when you felt the warm glow of success.  It could have been when that new client signed up with you…..when you finally worked through a long-standing conflict with…

Seven principles to strengthen relationships at work

That’s some good clickbait, huh? A friend observed “subtle undertones of humour” in my last post, so I thought I’d continue in that vein with a shameless clickbait title.  Following up on that last post, I want to illustrate something that is the realm of “soft skills” (eurgh) but is far from soft: maintaining healthy and…

Soft skills are not soft.

I once had someone suggest to me that I would not be capable of working amongst the “brutality” of business life.  I listened with great interest as there might have been some truth in what they were saying.  Upon extensive reflection, I considered what might be behind their comment, as it intrigued me enormously.  It intrigued…

Collaboration is not “soft”

I am occasionally left a little baffled by some of the stuff I read about digital social tools. In a lot of what I read and hear, there is no lack of intelligent analysis about social tools and their potential usefulness, however I do think that there is a huge dimension that is just absent.  That is the…

What does it take for us to work as a team?

Copernicus has been name-checked in a fair few articles I’ve read lately.  Good thing too.  Working with a client a couple years ago, we illustrated the concept of “shifting consciousness” with a story about Copernicus, our point being that to get to “WE”, to really get to WE, a shift in consciousness is required.  We…

Counter-acting the Stockholm Syndrome

Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages display empathy and sympathy for their captors, often developing positive feelings towards them and defending them. I’m often fascinated by how people, when they walk through the door of their workplaces, adopt behaviours akin to the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome.  Despite knowing in our hearts and…

How can we create new patterns of inter-relating at work?

I have been interested in the furore that has followed Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer banning workers from working from home.  I’ve also read that Hubert Joly, the new chief at struggling retailer Best Buy has also just scrapped their Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) for their corporate employees.  Corporate staff who, until now, have been…

Manage the system, not silos

I’ve heard that if you cut a hologram into pieces, each piece contains all the information of the whole.  I’ve never tried it, but I like the idea that each part is a microcosm of the whole thing. In working with three senior teams in three entirely different sectors over the past month, I’ve heard…

Do we really need performance management?

Individual performance management is rubbish.  Not only that, it’s patronising and disabling.  I’ve said it before.  When people aren’t performing, it’s extremely probable that it’s not a behavioural problem; it’s the system.  It’s not that performance management as a concept has been sullied because it’s been ineptly carried out.  It’s just that it’s pointless and…