• SERVICES
  • ABOUT US
  • PROJECTS
  • PEOPLE
  • RESOURCES
  • CONTACT

Leadership

Leadership & Management

Big and Scary

Andrew Penny, November 19 2024

But then came the curveball. Our club was invited to a 3K open-water swim in the Ottawa River. That’s three kilometres of cold, unpredictable water. No black lines at the bottom, no walls to push off. I’ve never done anything like it. Naturally, I said yes. Why? Because every year, I try to commit to one big, scary

Read More
Leadership & Management

Beowulf in the Boardroom

Graham Birkenhead, October 29 2024

Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon! We all remember inspirational teachers - those that in some way reached deeper into our minds and sparked wonder, creativity, imagination, and fun.  For me, one such teacher - from my UK equivalent of Grade 3 - would tell us a classic story of adventure...

Read More
Leadership & Management

Looking for Inspiration?  Look Somewhere Else!

Graham Birkenhead, August 27 2024

But what if the issue isn’t just what’s in, or not in your head, but where your head happens to be? Sometimes, the best way to kickstart creativity isn’t to push harder, but to step away and change your surroundings. There’s Psychology Behind ItWe’re all aware that our environment can affect our mood and how we feel; architects (some of them...

Read More
Leadership & Management

Help!  I Need to Make a Decision

Graham Birkenhead, August 20 2024

I seem to be surrounded by people who have some big decisions to make - some about their lives, some about their business - some early in their careers - and some later.  To varying degrees, some of these people have a history of making hasty decisions that at times worked out well, and other times not - and some of these people struggle to make...

Read More
Leadership & Management

The Peril of Weak Values

Graham Birkenhead, April 30 2024

And conversely, the power of strong, lived values A company's values are becoming an increasingly important part of a market's buying decision making - and that market is made of up thousands or millions of individual people. And, in a world where people are losing trust in governments and other traditional guiding institutions (Edelman Trust...

Read More
Leadership & Management

Thriving in a time of Complexity

Graham Birkenhead, March 19 2024

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, complexity seems to be a persistent constant. As business owners and CEOs, the challenge is not just to navigate this complexity but to thrive within it. We humans have been running businesses for a long time (several thousand years), so you'd think we would have a good handle on how to do that....

Read More
Leadership & Management

What has Behavioural Economics ever done for us?

Graham Birkenhead, March 12 2024

As I talk to business owners, I often enquire as to what is high on their list of headache inducing issues - and the 2 that are most commonly mentioned are money and people. And it's been like that for many, many years. The specific details may change, but those 2 categories

Read More
Leadership & Management

Dictum Meum Pactum

Andrew Penny, February 6 2024

The London Stock exchange, founded in 1571, has the motto “dictum meum pactum” on its coat of arms. It shows that members of the exchange are literally bound by what they say – without need of a written contract.  In more modern times we would say, ‘my word is as good as my

Read More
Leadership & Management

Look Differently

Graham Birkenhead, January 30 2024

We've probably all seen starlings.  Brownish birds that hang around in groups, often with quite thuggish behaviour as they swarm a food source to the exclusion of all other birds.  If you look a  little closer, you might notice that when they catch the light, there seems to be some iridescence to their feathers - and if you stand back you...

Read More
Leadership & Management

The watch word for 2024 is UNCERTAINTY

Andrew Penny, December 12 2023

In previous years words like volatility, instability, steady state were often used to describe the  business economy. But this year, the big thinkers are using the word uncertainty which is a polite way of saying they haven’t got a clue. Why is this? We have a rise in the number of powerful dictators, ungoverned by rule of law, which means things...

Read More
Next