It seems every time you go the library, the bookshop or browse your favourite audiobook store there is another book in leadership (plus of course an untold number of blogs!). Each of these books and blogs promise a whole new spin on what you need to do to be a good or a great leader. Which approach should you take, which new theory or guru is the r...

The other week I was trying to arrange a catch up with our local Institute of Directors branch to talk about opportunities to do presentations at their meetings about ISO management systems and the benefit of ISO systems within organisations. With the aim of helping directors understand their part of the ISO environment. The response wasn't what I ...

The other day I saw a LinkedIn post on leadership, it was another of those “I'll just stick this image up and see what happens” posts, hoping that it would get a reaction and go 'viral', you have all seen them. It had an image saying, "if you want to make everyone happy, don't be a leader. Sell ice Cream". The quote has been attributed to many peop...

People don't leave jobs they leave managers, it's a phrase you see across the internet and popping up on memes on social media and of course talks on youtube and TED. There are countless surveys out there that will tell you 57% of people or 78% of people or any number you, want leave a job because of their boss, and so it must be true, that's why p...

When I hear about companies and their zero targets it makes me shudder, I feel sorry for the people involved in the organisation knowing that they can never succeed. It doesn't matter if you call it a target or a goal, zero means zero. According to the merriam-webster dictionary, Zero is "the absence of all magnitude and quantity", in other words i...

We've hit the final quarter of the calendar year, and now is probably a good time to talk about the very best place you can spend a bit of your time. Yes, you need to keep delivering for your clients and finding more and taking care of day-to-day business, but you also need to take a step back and get rid of some zombies! Every organisation has the...

Beware the HiPPO! It sounds like something out of the latest blockbuster superhero or horror film doesn't it, a dire warning to the hero about the danger the HiPPO poses with the expectation that the hero, at some point, will have to face the HiPPO and survive. Encountering a HiPPO can range from being terrifying too hilarious to, well, depressing....

If I knew then what I know now… The inference from that little phrase is that you would obviously make a different decision and so things would turn out better. Often however that's not the case, certainly not with people at work. We all hire people who aren't suited for the company, they aren't necessarily bad people, it's just they don't fit the ...

Over the years we have talked with many organisations about their mission, vision, and company values, about setting up objectives and people to do well and be aligned to those things and it's gone well. Yet, I've always through there was a bit missing in the puzzle. When we talk about values, we mean the real values your company has, not the buzzw...

With the year almost over a friend of mine got an email from his with a sheet of paper attached asking him to put together his 5 objectives for 2021 and remember they must be SMART! Smart being a SMART Goal which is about being Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Time bound. I hate this he said, what is the point, what the heck am I suppos...

The working year has many milestones that are marked on the wall or outlook calendars. Some are looked on with excitement and some, well not so much. The annual break and long weekends would be the big positives, on the other side we have things like monthly budget reviews and of course the annual employee reviews. It does not matter if you are the...

Recently I was talking to a group of people (all from different organisations) about Standard Work. That is when organisations have a method of doing things, just one method, everyone does it the same way so you can get repeatable results. However, the important thing about these standard work routines or practices is that they do have to change ov...

I have been working with a couple of people of late who are just struggling to get things done, they have so much on their plates that there is just more to do than there are hours in their working week. The result of that is that they are stealing time from their personal lives to try and get things done in their work lives and feeling guilty abou...

Solving problems can be challenging, that is after all why they are called problems. It gets harder though if it is something completely out of left field, something that is completely new to you and just leaves you stumped. It can be stressful at times, especially if you have a bunch of people all depending on your decision. Thankfully, you are pa...

I attended a client's monthly management meeting the other week and it was interesting to say the least. The session was scheduled for an hour (so in my head I'm thinking that's a bit short) and it was to cover operational performance and a new product they were designing for a new market they were looking to enter. I'd asked in advance why they we...

I was at a meeting the other week when one of those annoying corporate sound bites was used to shut someone down, you know the ones that seem to sound right but when you stop and think about it a little they make zero sense at all. We've all heard and probably, unfortunately, used them from time to time but this one is one of the dumbest ones I can...

Organisations talk about their values, they frame them and put them on their walls, but do they really pay much attention to them? Frequent readers of the blog know that I have a passion about organisational culture, it's the one single true advantage your organisation has over any other so having a true set of values that you can build your cultur...

 When it comes to changing or improving things they say it's always easier to critique an idea or a draft of something than start with a blank sheet of paper, you never really get to start with a blank sheet anyway, there's always something that's set in stone, but what if there wasn't? What if you could genuinely start with a completely blank...