I have spent many years working with, observing, teaching and coaching leaders. I have also heard many stories from employees about leaders they have loved to work for and those they have not enjoyed as much. There are some key themes that I have observed in leaders who are highly effective and get the best […]
I was recently reading the reports of the inquest into the death of a Merrill Lynch intern who suffered an epileptic fit after working for 72 hours straight. The inquest returned a verdict of death from natural causes that “may have been triggered by fatigue” and has sparked debate about intern working conditions in highly […]
Today’s guest post comes from Darren Sprod of Halogen Software: Organisations talk a lot about employee engagement, and some go to great effort and expense to install comforts and conveniences meant to put smiles on employee faces. But unless it matters to employees, it’s just another HR program that’s not helping to support business goals. While […]
On a recent trip for a conference, I had lunch with one of my clients at a restaurant in the casino complex. We were discussing organisational culture as we entered the restaurant, so as a learning experience and a bit of fun I asked my client to “guess the culture”. Her observations were: When we […]
Think back to your early experiences as a manager – your “Management 101 class”. You were probably given some training or direction on goal setting. It was likely a variation on the SMART acronym, and you would have been told that goals are good because having targets motivates people. All good and useful stuff. However… […]
This is an article I wrote for Leaders in Heels. It got an extraordinary response and obviously resonated with their readers, so I thought I’d re-post it for readers of my blog. Management styles and when to use them is a topic every leader can take something from. Think back on your career and the […]
My last blog was a case study on the drivers of discretionary effort. In this post I want to talk about how to leverage those drivers. Before we begin, read my last post here. 1 – Create a clear and compelling purpose. As we saw from the case study, this needs to be simple and […]
Earlier this week I facilitated a session with a client to capture learnings from a significant crisis. To cut a long story short, we have had some devastating bush fires here in Tasmania and my client lost substantial assets in the fire. As a provider of an essential public service there was considerable pressure to […]
I was meeting a business contact for a coffee recently and we started talking about getting the best out of people. My contact works in an industry that can be quite hierarchical and rules driven and can struggle to engage people. The question we talked over was “how do you get people to work harder”? […]