While being tossed on the stormy Mediterranean, Odysseus kept Ursa Major on his starboard side and monitored the position of the Pleiades and Orion in order to stay on course. By keeping these universal truths in mind he was able to overcome uncertainty and navigate confidently. The word ‘uncertainty’ is being used a lot lately – probably because i...
Read MoreOver that last few weeks, I have been talking with dozens of people in Europe and North America. Of course, everybody’s talking about the pandemic and, as most of the people in my network are positive upbeat people they have been talking about the inevitable recovery. And as part of my network, I assume you too are thinking about the recovery.
Read MoreLearning to SeeSawubona is a Zulu greeting which means “I see you”. The idea is that you don't merely acknowledge a person by saying “hi”, but you take a moment (or 5) to look just a little bit beyond what you see on the surface, or maybe a little beyond the assumptions you are making when they reply “good” to your standard “how are you”. In some c...
Read MoreCOVID-19 has changed the world we once knew. But we are adapting – this is what we humans are good at and what made us the dominant species. Don’t worry, we will quickly learn how to live with this strange new world, and how to make it our new normal in order to get on with life and with business.
Read MoreAt this time of year background music is everywhere – (the one I dread hearing is ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ – Jesus had a drummer??) Can you hear what I hear…. We all know that stores are not playing it for our entertainment – they want to put us in a better mood perhaps? Well not exactly.
Read MoreI’m a great fan of diversity in the work place – not just those more obvious visible aspects, or the broad range of cultural perspectives and experiential insights that people can bring, but also the way we are all wired differently. This is known as *neuro-diversity. Neuro-diversity can give a team strength by allowing it to ‘see different and to...
Read MoreI was invited to observe a meeting with a client last week. Ten of the invitees arrived on time but the meeting didn’t start on time because a couple of ‘key’ people were missing. And then, when it finally got underway, I realized that most of the attendees weren’t sure what the meeting was all about. As the conversation progressed, one or two peo...
Read MoreHave you ever tried to find something in your garage or storage cupboard? You know what you are looking for, you know where it is, but to get there you have to wade through loads of other stuff? Stuff just accumulates, little by little; you hardly notice it – in fact, most often you don't notice it at all – until you are looking for something. So,...
Read MoreFor having more productive discussions ... I was an observer at a workshop and conference recently. As happens at these events, people were split into various groups to consider specific subjects. Lots of interesting discussion was generated and many good ideas came out of it. By the looks on their faces, the participants felt like they had made go...
Read MoreAcceleration is all about going faster, and then going even faster, and then faster still. If you look at a graph of acceleration – it shows that over time, your speed, or size, or revenue doesn't just get larger in a nice straight line, but it’s a line that curves upwards. Now the thing is with acceleration, as opposed to a nice steady linear g...
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