The Cobra Effect; Incentives and Unintended Consequences.
In the annals of governance and public policy, few stories illustrate the law of unintended consequences better than the infamous “Cobra Effect” in India. This cautionary tale offers profound lessons for leaders, especially those at the helm of private equity-backed portfolio companies, where the alignment of incentives is paramount. The story begins with a well-intentioned…
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…
Being Resilient Requires Goals, Purpose and Presence…
This is my fourth article in a five part series, which attempts to break down the subject of ‘resilience’. This article will focus on the value of goals, the need for a purpose and the value of our attention which I sometimes refer to as ‘presence’. Goal Orientation How do you manage a project? You…
The Impact of our Environment on our Resilience
In my last article, I talked about the role of evolutionary psychology and the impact it has on your resilience in the modern world. This article will focus on the role of your environment. The picture below is often known as the Freudian Iceberg. It illustrates the point that the behaviour and results that we…
The Impact of Evolutionary Psychology on Resilience
This is the second article in a series that attempts to explain ‘why we have a resilience problem’. In my last article I wrote about how we are designed for a world that we no longer inhabit. I wrote about the slow process of human evolution and the impact that the last 200 years have…
Why do we have a Resilience Problem?
The reason we have a resilience problem is because we live in a world that we are no longer designed for. I appreciate that this is a simplistic explanation so there will be other factors and reasons involved. I want to outline what I believe to be the foundation of the resilience problem. Let’s go…
3 Tips for Effectively Communicating with Your Remote Workforce
If you’re in a leadership position at your company, you already know the value of having excellent communication skills—and how communication is essential for fostering your team’s productivity. Whether conveying important information to clients or disseminating tasks to internal teams, great communicators are able to share essential information while simultaneously inspiring and connecting with their…
Relearning the Same Mistake
One of the things that most people believe is that they learn from their mistakes. I don’t think that is true. We like to think that we do but the reality is that analysing mistakes is often too is painful – so we avoid it. I also believe that the majority of our decisions and…
Do you Plan Tactically or Strategically?
We are far better at planning for the short-term than we are for the long-term. Think about when you get in the car. If you don’t know where you are going, you tap in the details to a sat-nav system to tell you the route. You might have an advanced system that updates itself to…
Why High Performers Struggle with Feedback
Challenge and feedback are both valuable but often difficult to receive. Why? How can something that is good for you generate a negative emotional reaction? Challenge reminds us that there are many ways in which we can view the world. It reminds us that there are other perspectives out there rather than just our own.…
The Principles of Leadership
What Does the Word “Leadership” Mean? The word leadership is like the word religion, it means so much that it actually means very little. My neighbour goes to Church every Sunday, she could be described as religious… but then so could a jihadi fighting for Isis in the Middle-East. The broader the definition of the…
10 Questions that Uncover High Performers…
One of the challenges involved in building a high performing team is selecting the right people. You can’t build a high performing team with low performing people so who you let into your organisation matters. It is arguably one of the most important decisions you make especially if your team is small. Hiring someone is…
The Human Givens Approach
We have an expectation that people should understand us. Understand our perspective, our reasoning and our expectations from other people. The problem with this is that we rarely know ourselves. We don’t often know what we want out of life. We don’t know what makes us happy. And we rarely know why we behave in…
Six Thinking Errors – Which one is Yours?
There are six common thinking errors that people suffer from. These are examples of negative mental models that people have. I describe them as negative because they usually lead to a behaviour or a feeling that we don’t want. If you can understand them and watch out for the ones that you suffer from, you…
