Stuck in the middle with you
It’s time to invest in our middle managers. We’ve invested heavily in our executives, and in our front line leaders. We’ve invested in our new leaders, and in our future leaders, and in our future senior leaders. But what about those who are not on this list? The ones who are established leaders now; definitely […]
Why it’s important to stay targeted
The reason HR is being so successful right now is that we have made a significant shift. One of these key shifts is from busy to targeted. By ruthlessly deprioritising HR’s busy-work, we’ve been able to focus on fewer, more targeted initiatives and are delivering them really well. If you’ve got more than 5 problems […]
3 talent team tactics to think about right now
In the talent world you typically Buy, Borrow or Build talent to get the work done. BUY: We’ve had over 20 years of McKinsey’s ‘war for talent’, and untold investment into Talent Acquisition as a result. You might argue that it’s working too well: Gartner tells us that 65% of people think it’s easier to […]
The simple secrets of great leadership comms
If you can’t explain it, they won’t get it. If they don’t get it, they won’t buy-in. If they don’t buy-in, it won’t get done. As leaders, it’s our job to communicate in a way that informs, inspires, clarifies, and motivates. One mistake I see often is when a leader communicates with technical accuracy, rather […]
Surprisingly, now is the right time to reskill your workforce
The World Economic Forum met at the beginning of this year to discuss the urgent need for global reskilling. Then they got upstaged by Covid-19. But the argument hasn’t gone away. In fact, with recessionary conditions looming, one could claim the argument has been strengthened. The increasing talent shortage we were experiencing throughout 2019 wasn’t just […]
The ugly truth: can you handle it?
We often hide the truth of org change in order to protect our people from the ugly truth. Did you know that this beautiful sentiment of employee care is actually counter-productive? The truth is our people can handle it – and in fact, when we’re worried about putting too much on them, we could actually […]
Are you talking in the wrong language?
Dan Coyle’s ‘Culture Code’ talks about the signals and language of highly successful groups, and most leaders already know the importance of the verbal cues and phrases we choose to use. This has never been more important than it is today. Language is code for culture. To enable our workforces to adopt greater adaptability and […]
What happens when you make this one little change to your comms
Like all of us, I’m still stuck in Corona-mania. I recently discovered that to find out what was really going on in Wuhan, people had been turning to Tinder. It made me recall 9/11 when people were watching citizen reportage via Youtube and Facebook before watching the News. Then I listened to the HR priorities […]
3 surprisingly simple ways to improve your leadership today
I was recently talking to a client who was concerned about the long term effects of CV19 on her workforce, and was uncomfortable to talk about it with them. We have no idea how all this will pan out, but we do know one thing. Our people are responsible, professional adults and they can handle […]
How to trust your leadership instincts
In her book “Fixing Feedback”, Georgia Murch makes the brilliant statement: People hear your content, but smell your intent. When I ran People Change at Australia Post for a few years, one thing I noticed about leaders preparing for a hard conversation – whether it was performance or redundancy – was an obsession with following […]
