There’s no such thing as a diplomatic hand grenade.
Go ahead, avoid those difficult conversations.
Wait, what did you say? How can you avoid difficult conversations and still be productive? What rubbish!
But it’s what you want to do – admit it.
Difficult conversations are SO against our nature, that right now more than 50% of your workforce is avoiding having one, and 11% will even quit their job – yes actually quit – in order to avoid one.
We spend $$$ training our people to have difficult conversations. We should be teaching them to avoid conversations getting difficult in the first place.
How to fall in love with procrastinating
This week I have been procrastinating. A lot. I have been doing it all week and I’m getting really very good at it. So why, this week, is procrastination no longer my friend?
Is this the scariest question in the world?
John Maltby says that the scariest question in the world is “So tell me about yourself……” And he’s right – we all fumble that one when asked, don’t we? You know how easy it is to talk at length about what you KNOW, but it’s really hard to talk at length about YOU? It’s literally […]
How to tackle the horrible middle
No, I’m not spruiking a new diet – I’m talking about change! The ‘horrible middle’ is a phrase coined by Harvard’s Rosabeth Kantor, who says that change is “90% perspiration and 10% inspiration” Everything looks like a failure in the middle. Everyone loves inspiring beginnings and happy endings; it is the middle that requires you […]
Just do this 1 thing and avoid becoming a statistic
As a leader, everything you do is visible, watched and judged. Yet so many of us go about our daily work with much thought of our reputation. My client had put in very little thought, and less effort, into crafting his reputation. He believed his work should speak for itself He hated ‘tacky’ self-promotion He […]
The surprising truth about levelling up your career
When I was running the Talent Acquisition Team at Australia Post, I was in pretty much in charge of HOW the work got done. I thought this was great – top of my game – but I was still frustrated. As I expanded my remit to include Careers, Onboarding, People Change and People Experience I […]
One thing most leaders fail to do
Achieving a level of mastery over what we do is core to our confidence as leaders. Josh Kayman says it takes 20hrs of practice to be ‘pretty good’ – Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000hrs of practice to be ‘expert’. They both agree that practice is key to mastering a craft. And yet….as leaders, we’re […]
How to make it easier for people to do business with you
David Rock says there are 5 buttons we can press on humans that result in derailing, disruptive behaviour. We literally fight, flee or freeze – none of them particularly useful when collaborating! The buttons are: Status Certainty Autonomy Relationships Fairness For many years I could be a bit tricky to work with – people assumed […]
Join me at the world’s leading festival for business and creativity!
I’m really excited to be MC’g at Pausefest in Feb this year – the world’s leading festival for business and creativity. Pause Fest is an independent, industry-driven movement with a mission to bring diverse intelligence together to fuel the next generation forward – described as ‘Australia’s SXSW’, ‘Octoberfest for Business’ and ‘Woodstock for digital natives’. In 2019, they welcomed […]
I have to lead like a parent because my people act like children.
If your people are acting like children, then they’ve likely been made to feel like children by you. – Jeff Nischwitz When I first started working with many of my clients, their mindest was firmly in ‘our people need looking after’ mode, which is lovely, but misguided. These are professionals with families, mortgages and a […]
