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We explore the idea that the box is actually your survival map of the world as you have come to understand it - it's there to keep you safe. It's also partially defined by your expertise; very clever people have BIG boxes - they are still boxes - and you use that expertise to recognise situations or problems and come up with solutions. This...
Read MoreThose elephants just sneak into the room with you, hide in plain sight whilst tucked away in corners, and cause havoc with your company’s performance. If only we could do something about that. Humans have an amazing ability to see and notice things that are different or changing, but we are generally less good at seeing things that don't...
Read MoreWe often have a strategy for this and a strategy for that - and we have strategic plans etc. Having quantized approaches to achieving goals can work well, especially when you know where you are and you well understand the nature of the system around you. However, when we are running businesses, with bigger, fuzzier and further out goals and much...
Read MoreAnyone remember VUCA? It’s an acronym that stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. I’ve used VUCA as a strategic planning tool when trying to understand what was going on around me and so increase the chances of coming to an optimal course of action. As a concept, it was first described by the leadership guru Warren Bennis...
Read MoreA recent UK employee study paints a rather troubling picture of company life. It found that: The study went on to identify that roughly half the people would leave a negative on-line review about their company, and that nearly 50% wouldn't even apply to a company that had negative online reviews. At a time when so many companies are struggling...
Read MoreWe intuitively know the correlation between company culture and company success (including success in attracting and retaining great people). Research shows that companies who’s staff describe their culture as good or excellent seem to be thriving in all respects. We also know how to build an outstanding
Read MoreWe often use the term 'a square peg in a round hole' to describe someone that in some way just doesn't fit either in the role, the office, or just the culture. That interpretation comes from an early 19th-century philosophical treatise* that considered people and their situations as a wide range of shapes - including triangles and oblongs, and...
Read MoreAll of these 5 areas of discovery are in someway interdependent - they are all aspects of the same person, and that person needs to be considered in the context of you, your company, and the opportunity you are offering. See Why would anyone ever work for you? Make sure you consider them all; the potential new employee will appreciate your...
Read MoreYou can consider that a company will experience 3 broad stages during it's growth. And market / revenue growth has to be balance with internal organisational growth. And so, while a company needs to adjust what it does as it grows, it also needs to change what it is, and this parallel change in being is a cultural
Read MoreI am a great believer in the value of a company being in touch with its values. And I am greatly saddened when I see those values distilled into a mere list of words that are written on walls and published in websites. And you know some of the words I'm talking about: Communication, Respect, Integrity and Excellence are a few of the common...
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