Collaborative Culture
I first noticed corporate culture when I moved to my second employer. I didn't know that work environments could be so different! I had been with my first employer - a multinational manufacturing company - for 10 years, and so until I moved to a new company I had no understanding of "Company Culture" at all.
All I knew was what I had experienced. We were a "no-frills" company, and a part of the culture was to make sure that you held on to the best office furniture that you could accumulate as people moved on through.
If someone got a promotion, moved to a different department, or handed in their notice, the rest of the team would be on the lookout for a furniture upgrade - perhaps a more comfortable chair or a newer filing cabinet.
A soul whose intentions are good
Recently I was looking for examples of a great leader. It seems that we've always had some good leaders among us, and we've often even had some impressive leaders demonstrating moments of absolute brilliance.
However, from my research, we've rarely seen a great leader. Leaders who don't rely on their position or role to get things done, but who seem to gather followers naturally; leaders who lead by acclaim, not by position; leaders who really want to make a noticeable difference in the world around them.
Difference Taker, or Difference Maker
Leaders with an abundance mentality and approach to their work focus on the possibilities rather than the problems, on what could be rather than what is, on what they want to do rather than on what’s convenient, on what they could achieve to make a difference.
Stuck in the storm
There is a storm going on right now for many businesses in the midst of this pandemic, where uncertainty is causing staff to dwell in the storm for far longer than they need to. If the team can’t see a way forward with certainty, and the what-if discussion goes round in circles, then the team can find itself languishing in the storm from where others have already emerged.
PRIZE Leadership Quotient
Leadership is the art of making decisions in the dim light of incomplete information, and leadership is measured with the illumination of hindsight.If we want to be sure to be as well equipped as possible when the time comes for those dimly lit decisions to be made, then we need to make sure that our leadership skills are as developed as possible in preparation, and the PLQ provides a helpful benchmark against which we can assess our progress.If we can measure it, then we stand a chance of being able to deliver it.
What’s your motivation?
I have found without exception, when working with teams, that by helping them to understand the things that motivate them and their colleagues, they can learn how to improve their combined performance, productivity and profitability.
Collateral Beauty
So what could “collateral beauty” mean? Well, maybe it could be described as an unintended bonus, benefit or beneficial consequence resulting unexpectedly from the midst of a tragedy.
Generation C is where Life is done “Digital-First”
Rather than designing for the physical world, and then simulate that design in the online world, we’ll be designing for the online world, and stimulating that in the physical world. We’ll start living our lives mobile-first.
Living in an online world
My current plan involved spending the morning with over 200 other people, and then going directly to visit with two people who were considered to be at high risk of being seriously affected by this growing pandemic should they contract the virus. That didn’t seem to be a wise plan of action.
Tech Tools for Life Online
I have been using the online environment for over 15 years, and today I’ll be bringing some of the main ideas from this experience. We will look at some great ideas for encouraging participant engagement in the online environment, and we’ll have the chance to explore some of this mysterious online world together.
Engaging with Life Online
How do we go about influencing an audience so that they do change their behaviour, and turn Shelf-Development into Self-Development? This post looks at video conferencing, and in particular, at some additional tools we can use to encourage participation and engagement in online meetings.
They did it My Way!
Employees and consumers alike are becoming increasingly intolerant of companies without a cause. People want to know that what they’re doing will make a difference, not just make a profit.
People quit people or position
I can’t count how many times I have heard people say they left an organisation because of what “they” did; it might be that John did this, or Jane did that, or a very popular reason is “they” offended me. Rarely, however, do “they” include the organisation ...
If it looks like a duck
The lesson here is that where something has all the characteristics of a thing, it probably is that thing, never mind what it is called or presented as, and despite the objective evidence to the contrary.
How're you doin'
We all see the conductor standing right there at the front of the sea of musicians waving his baton around, but what does he actually do? Well, the answer is that it’s something that the audience at a concert will rarely if ever see, but it has a massive impact on the performance of the orchestra.