Tearing up the road – perhaps a metaphor?
The local Council put a note through the door a week or so ago to announce they were replacing the worn out road surface outside my house. There was no debate about this. There was no opportunity for anyone to suggest the old one was nice and we had grown attached to it. It was…
Is there any sign of personality or life in your paperwork?
When you dissect our work a couple things stand out. It matters what we say, how we behave how we interact. But of equal importance are our handouts, materials, proposals, slides, brochures; the written material that surrounds our profession. I bet many of you are judged on the same or a similar basis. Whether you…
Caption competition
Thanks to Innovise for sending us this photo from a recent Leadership Development programme. That’s me in the pink shirt by the way! The programme was fantastic and what brilliant people to work with. Do send us any captions to go with this photo. I will reward the best by sending out some cool desk…
Steve Earl is right
Steve is a great musician and a great thinker. At one of his concerts he talked about the map of the world. He challenged you to take a look at the globe and see all the different countries marked out and how the borders are shaped and defined. We use colour coding to identify different…
Shouting from the touchline
What must it be like being the referee, the coach and the manager? I went to see my son play hockey at the weekend and was intrigued by the behaviour of the visiting coach for the other team. He had an interesting challenge. He was refereeing the match whilst coaching his team. His style reminded…
Who would you like to sit next to at dinner?
Our job is interesting. We get to meet people from all walks of life and we can compare and contrast people, teams, businesses. We get to experience the best and at times the worst of executive behaviour. So consider two Chief Executives we have met recently. One, sharp, quick witted. You can tell he is…
Impact, charisma, gravitas – It’s not what you say that gets remembered but how you say it
We run sessions on Executive Presence – how to build personal impact and gravitas. Some of you reading this blog will have attended one of these sessions. On the programme we talk about personal impact when presenting. I was reminded of this session today when listening to Prime Ministers question time broadcasting from the House…
Challenging the same old routine
Few things are as simple as walking home from work. I get on the train from London. Get off the train at Fratton Station; walk down Fawcett Road and round a couple of corners to my house. Surely there is nothing wrong with this? It is a well practiced routine to the extent that I…
Are you an Ostrich or a Finger Pointer?
In Marshall Goldsmith’s book ‘What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There’ he berates the leader who doesn’t apologise. I was running a session on Executive Presence on Friday and explored his research with a collection of up and coming managers and future leaders. We discussed leaders who refuse to apologise even after some monumental…
Barbershop Quartet
Near my house is a typical city road. Not a busy one, it contains shops, restaurants bars, a few small offices and barber shops. In fact it has four. The road is less than a mile long so they have their work cut out to make a living. When you look closely you find that…