Thoughts

Busy? Sure! Getting stuff done? You bet. Learning? Hmmm… For most of us, the days can fly by, largely shaped by to-do lists, back-to-back tasks, and meetings. Business activities. Busyness activities. I assume the idea behind all of this is that if we get through all of the activities, we’ve done a good day’s work. […]

  A man sits down at a piano and prepares to play. When he starts, it’s not what you might expect. Take a few moments to go on this musical and emotional journey with Eric Lewis. You don’t need to watch the whole thing if you don’t have time – just a few minutes will […]

In the not-so-distant past, I got feedback that some people around me didn’t know what I stood for. Ouch. No one wants to get feedback like that, especially when you’re in a leadership role. It would have been so easy for me to get defensive and make it their problem. But I sat with the […]

Stories. When you think about it, they’re all around us, and inside our heads. All day, every day. In fact, psychologist Robin Dunbar’s research suggests we are telling stories 65% of the time (a lot of the time, it’s gossip, but they are still stories). We all seem to use stories to communicate and connect […]

I’ve been working with a lot of clients lately who all seem to be in a similar space. Work is just crazy, and won’t let up. It’s not merely ‘busy’ – it’s something more. It’s not just a volume problem, it’s a complexity problem, and navigating a way forward is harder than ever. As someone […]

Whenever I’m working with leaders on their development, I find it useful to get a sense of where they are on the ‘career curve’. This helps us make sense of their context, and identify the most effective strategies that will help them keep moving forward. Here’s how I think about it:     This is […]

Here’s a simple thought experiment that I was kicking around with a client the other day. Imagine you go into work tomorrow and the volume’s turned down to zero. Stuff’s happening as it usually would, you just can’t hear anything. What activities would you see people doing? If it’s your standard white collar workplace, it’ll […]

I started my career as a Chartered Accountant in one of those big firms full of suits, ties and protocol. Like many of my peers, not long after I qualified, I resigned and took off overseas to see what the rest of the world had to offer. The well-travelled path led to working in accountancy […]

“I’ve really been out of my comfort zone these past two weeks. It felt like I was learning a new job from day one. But I’ve learned and grown so much!” So said a client of mine on a coaching call earlier this week. She’d just finished a secondment on a high-profile project in an […]

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some talented managers in both London and Shanghai. They’re all facing a major business change in the form of a system implementation which will significantly alter their core business processes and keep them competitive. Think of it like when banks moved to online […]