Trust is an essential component of us being able to work together, serve others and buy from others. Trust in leaders is essential for an enterprise to be able to deliver its promise. Today, trust is greatly diminished at all levels, in politics, government, and commerce. It feels like a race to the bottom, grabbing […]
Do these examples sound familiar to you? After the usual greetings and niceties, Mike, the manager, began the meeting with his direct reports with this statement, “Well, getting down to business, I expect that we’ll hear positive reports about your projects’ progress. Who’s going first?” What followed was a litany of excuses from everyone, […]
You work in an organisation that is complex. You will often navigate between both functional and dysfunctional aims, needs and issues. The political landscape in organisations will include: Whole of government requirements versus departmental requirements e.g. funding Interdepartmental issues e.g. Finance versus Marketing Cultural issues between career pathways e.g. Leadership and management versus subject matter […]
Small to medium enterprises are the engine room of the economy. They employ a staggering 99.8 of the Australian workforce.1 Yet they are also the most vulnerable.2 For example, they are vulnerable to: fluctuating banking policy and behaviour; inability to fund growth and innovation; the buying and marketing power of large enterprise; the ebb and […]
Brian (not his real name) is an expert cabinet maker, specialising in custom kitchen and bathroom design. He loves the challenge of creating kitchens and bathrooms for residences, especially larger renovations. He has grown the 20-year-old business to employing 15 full-time employees: 4 cabinet-makers and I apprentice and 3 plumbers and 2 apprentices, 2 draftsmen […]
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Really? It doesn’t have to be broken to become redundant. It reminds me of the book title “What got you here, won’t get you there”. The longer an enterprise enjoys success increases their potential for failure. That’s what the evidence shows. Why? […]
Root cause analysis is the process for determining the real cause of a problem, malfunction, error or oversight, so that the situation can be remedied and not occur again. Root cause analysis practices can vary according to the category, for example safety, production, process, failure and systems. However, all those categories are ultimately created operated […]
My client, an officer in the emergency management sector, was recovering from PTSD. He had seen too many fatal incidents, had too many terrible experiences. They had affected him personally. He felt guilt and anger. He felt helpless. My purpose was to help him recover through coaching. Separately, he was receiving valuable help from a […]
Recently, after more than 20 years as a leadership consultant, I have elected to never tender or submit a competitive RFQ (request for quote) again. OK, I’m a slow learner! I realise that it will diminish the number of clients I work with, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Over the last ten years, […]
I was coaching a line manager, helping her to better deal with conflict within her team. I raised the issue of under or poor performance and how she dealt with that. She said, “Oh, we don’t deal with that, it has to go to HR, they deal with those issues.” I said, “Really, how does […]
