I hope you and those close to you are safe and well. These are challenging times and they are certainly invoking a lot of different emotions for people. As a leader, all we can do is provide support to our teams and encourage them to make themselves the priority. If your experience is anything like my own, you probably jumped into the response to the pandemic with a sense of gusto and challenge; however, as the weeks (more…)

It’s the beginning of another year and of course I’m going to talk about goal setting. It’s such an important part of our personal and professional development, and is an absolute must in your leadership toolkit. How many of us set goals for the new year, start off with a hiss and roar but have nothing to show for our efforts a couple of months later. We’ve all been guilty of it because goal setting alone isn’t enough. (more…)

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…)

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…)

What if I was to tell you that you are not really who you think you are? It sounds like a line straight out of The Matrix, but for the majority of us, it’s true. It’s like a big secret that we carry around about ourselves and we think we’re the only one who knows it. The truth is, we all carry the same secret and we hope that no one else will ever discover it; it’s like a little game that everyone is playing, the person with the best poker face wins…or is the ultimate loser. You see, as human beings, we all share the same (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…)