In Defence of Micromanagement
This article is meant to generate a reaction, something that surprises the reader and makes them think. Hopefully I have made my case effectively but please comment and let me know if you think differently – all respectful opinions are valued! Leadership is not just about empowering people and letting them get on with…
Is that a Fact or your Opinion?
Leaders create the conditions for execution. They nurture people and the environment to make it easier for them to perform. If you want to understand why someone is or isn’t performing, it often helps to look at the environment and ask the question, ‘is it easy or difficult to perform here?’ I believe that nearly…
Why ‘It is fine’ is the worst piece of feedback you can receive…
A culture of feedback is one of the key elements that all high performing teams have in common. On an individual level – the ability to accept and respond to feedback is one of the most important skills a person can develop. But how do we create a culture of feedback? How do we…
How are Formula One teams saving the lives of new-born babies?
If you want to dramatically improve the performance of your team, then it is vital to look outside your industry Why? Because if you look outside your industry, you’re likely to pick up tools, techniques and practices (TTPs) that other people haven’t thought of yet – and it is these TTPs applied in your industry that…
Where are you on the ‘Ladder of Accountability’
A culture of ‘accountability’ is the most important element in ‘making things happen’. It doesn’t matter how good the vision is, or the strategy to deliver that vision – if you don’t have a culture of accountability you’re ‘wheel spinning’ – putting in tons of effort, making lots of noise but not actually going anywhere!…
Are your recruitment processes setting you up to fail?
If you want to build a high performing organisation – you’ve got to start by getting the ‘right people’. I don’t think that there are many businesses out there that would disagree with that statement. The success of an organisation in the long-term is dependent upon the ability to attract and retain talented individuals. We all…
The Recipe for Creating a High Performance Culture
I have been interested in high performing teams since I played water polo at University. This interest in working with people to achieve a common aim led me to a career in the Royal Marines – where I was exposed to a truly elite high performing culture. I have been preparing to write something on this…
Six Simple Steps to Solving Problems
Last week, I wrote an article on ‘double-loop learning’ which explained how the Royal Marines relearnt how to shoot. This week, I want to take double-loop learning one step further and provide you with a simple but very effective tool for solving problems. The aim of this article is to give you a very simple…
Why did the Royal Marines relearn how to shoot?
In this article, I am going to introduce the concept of double-loop learning, which I was taught by Damian Hughes during the Barefoot Coaching course. I hope to be able to bring it to life using a couple of examples – one in a personal and one in an organisational context. Why do you need…
Why do you need to check that standards are in place?
When I am struggling to think of something to write about, I normally find some inspiration from what’s happened over the past couple of weeks. In this short article, I am going to link the leadership behaviour of ‘checking standards’ to food poisoning… My wife and I decided to take a couple of nights away…
Do you have a balance of Leading and Lagging Key Performance Indicators?
‘What gets measured gets done’. It is an old expression but it still carries a lot of weight in the world of business. If you can measure something, you can work on it and you can improve it. The problems come when you measure the wrong thing, which sounds like an amateur mistake but is…
Why starting your day by opening your emails destroys productivity…
The first thing that many of us do when we get into the office, or even when we wake up, is to check our emails. In this short article, I’m going to explain why this is so damaging to your productivity. For many people, the morning is their most productive time of day. This is…
Are you Sharpening the Axe?
‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe’ Abraham Lincoln There are broadly speaking two types of activity that we spend time focussing on. There are the things that you need to do in order to get the job done today. At work, these…
Designing Culture – Netflix Case Study
Netflix is a Global Internet TV Network with 70 million members broadcasting in 190 countries. They have been phenomenally successful evolving a business model that started out as ‘online film rental’ to their current subscription based streaming service. They are well known for their success with their revenues in 2015 reaching $5.5bn. What is perhaps…
