After years of attending all sorts of meetings in all manner of organisations, I reckon they all fall into 1 of 2 categories: Uplifting, constructive and energising Draining, life-sapping, boring, repetitive, ego-dominated, self-serving, bureaucratic, directionless, tedious, overlong, pointless, disengaging, demeaning, demotivating and time-wasting. Some meetings are just not worth holding – they do more harm…
The growing clamour to address gender inequality on boards misses the point. Here’s why: Bear Gryll’s Island adventure for wannabe castaways was an occasionally entertaining, if flawed experiment, enabling us to compare how men and women endure starvation, dehydration and extreme discomfort. Extreme in the context of the comfortable lives we live in the 1st world, that…
A client of mine recently told me about his friend who had been interviewed for a senior public sector appointment: a place on the board as a non-executive director. On stepping into the room, she was confronted by an interview panel of 20 people – that’s right, 20. Apparently she got the job, though why…
Why sticking with the facts will get you nowhere fast. First things first: Having made such an outrageous, contentious statement, I’d better get some caveats in quick before you all turn my post to shreds! Here we go: Facts are good. I like facts; I don’t know where we’d be without them. Spock was 1/2…
Coaching for Outcomes…or Insights? I’ve been coaching for over 15 years now and over that period I’ve familiarised myself with a number of coaching processes and methodologies, not to mention all those acronyms. I’ve noticed how many of these methods try to tie down the multitude of ways that you can approach coaching – some even attempting to…
I regularly work with boards and senior management teams on Strategy, which as far as I’m concerned, essentially means working out: where we are; where we want to get to; how we’re going to get there. It’s a deceptively simple challenge – simple, not necessarily easy. Occasionally, someone pipes up with: “Let’s talk about Values!” at which point…
Reading Mike Willis’ (et al) excellent book recently, The Resilient Director, I came across the concept of the Subversive Director and suddenly realised that I had a name for what, on occasion, I instinctively try to be in the boardroom. Now Subversion is quite a strong term with overtones of a deliberate intention to destabilise or unsettle….
I have to admit to having a problem with the whole concept of Role Models. Let me explain: Firstly I’ll lay out what I mean by a Role Model: Someone, anyone on whom someone else models their behaviour, for whatever reason. So this could be David Beckham, Mother Theresa, Oprah Winfrey, Nelson Mandela… you get the…
This week I met someone who had recently lost his job and was making his first tentative steps into the world of self-employment. He is very well connected and has met and lobbied politicians and dignitaries across the globe. He is bright and personable. He has all the attributes: skills, experience, attitude and energy to…