If you’ve read the opening chapter of my book, you may remember me describing an incident where I was inadequately, and some might say unnecessarily, defending myself in a boardroom. This wasn’t the first time I embarrassed myself with that kind of behaviour, and it wasn’t the last. It took me a while to discover the underlying drivers for the behaviour, but once I did, I was able to make the changes which have helped me become more like the person I want to be. (more…)

I was giving a workshop on communication a few months ago and I shared that the only real way to build relationships was through face to face interactions. One of the participants absolutely stumped me when he vehemently disagreed and proclaimed that in his last role he worked from home and through email and social media formed some the best relationships of his life. I had to agree that the world is changing and that it is possible to form a relationship over the internet but (more…)

Feedback is one of those things that is talked about a lot in organisations but is rarely done well. Sometimes, if you can believe it, it’s not done at all! No feedback at all is so much worse than “negative” feedback because without any feedback you don’t know if you’re hitting the mark or not. I put “negative” in double quotes because I believe feedback is just feedback…there’s no such thing as negative feedback, there’s only the meaning you put on it. All feedback is useful and there are certain things you (more…)

When I first arrived in New Zealand my boss was a relatively heavy smoker. It wasn’t unusual to find him outside dragging on a cigarette before coming back into the office to get back into his work. I often found myself joining him as we engaged in some conversation about an existing challenge we were facing into and although I never smoked, just the change of environment helped move the discussion along. After that brief five minutes outside we often came up with a solution or at least steps (more…)

Coaching is one of the fastest growing industries in the world! According to Forbes, eighty percent of directors would welcome coaching and, while not every CEO has a coach, one hundred percent of their bosses wish they had. While coaching in the US, the UK, and Australia is already a very well established practice, it is taking a little longer to become the “performance development tool” of choice here in New Zealand. Having said that, coaching is (more…)

The word ‘agile’ has such polarising effects on people. There are the die-hard project management purists who still believe it’s a passing fad and then there are the agile evangelists who couldn’t imagine any other way of working. Personally I’ve had experience on both sides of the fence and from every angle imaginable and I believe that there’s a place for both. Just as Waterfall is absolutely the right approach for some projects, Agile is equally the right approach for others. What’s missing is the (more…)

We’re in an age where the quick fix is all the rage. We’re all looking for the reward without having to put in the effort, to earn the status without working on character, to be seen as an expert without beating on the trade. I’m as guilty as the next person. I’ve recently become consumed by how to make the perfect poached egg (I love poached eggs!), and after several failed attempts and a few hit and misses, I jumped onto Youtube to see how (more…)

I caught up with a good friend of mine, Jen, after work one evening and I was surprised to see she was on crutches. She rolled her ankle pretty badly during a netball game, which put her out for the season. This didn’t get her down though. Jen is always upbeat and looks for the good in every situation. She said that since she started using crutches everybody has been so helpful. “A guy literally ran across the road to help me get out of a taxi. Then he held the door to the entrance open and made sure I got through alright. With a quick (more…)

I was having a coffee with a colleague last week and, as it tends to do, the topic of conversation turned to leadership. In this case, it was servant leadership. My colleague expressed his view that servant leadership was great in theory but could never work in practice. “I mean,” he argued, “how can you be a servant to others but still make the decisions, and tell them what to do and the direction to take? There’s too much of a dichotomy to make it work.” I had to agree with him…to a point. (more…)

One of the most powerful leadership styles we can use is the coaching style. Unfortunately it’s also the least used of all the styles which is a terrible shame because it can have a tremendously positive impact on your team and the environment. The GROW model is a very simple tool to help you get started on how to coach people in your team to higher performance.

PLEASE NOTE: Before coaching anyone it’s important to ask (more…)