MOST RECENT BLOG POSTS

True story. Becky and Sandra worked together in a busy finance team. Their chairs are back to back and they work on related stuff so they need to communicate. But they didn’t get on.Becky was always turning around saying, ‘Sandra, I need to talk to you...

Doers are the backroom heroes of the company. They don’t sell, they don’t strategise and they’re not brilliant with relationships. They don’t, therefore, really stand out. Yet without them doing and building and getting stuff done, the org falls apart.But...

Imagine a company where everyone is fully engaged because they’re doing the work they were made for. Where growth comes effortlessly without the usual nails and claws. Where teams work like oiled machines, comfortably going at cruise speed all day without...

We think about changing our job 16 times a year on average. And we actually change employers every 5 years.What’s gone wrong?Instability like this is a disaster for personal lives and employers alike. It demonstrates that we have no idea how to scan people...

Based on a true event. Only the people and organisation names have been changed. Brenda was stressed. With a Masters from Yale and a careerbackground in finance in a New York bank, she was hardly short of intellectual gunnery. Yet having taken a salary cut...

For some, leadership comes naturally. These people effortlessly bend others to their will, they are born to command. ‘Here’s the strategy people, let’s go execute.’ This is the archetype of the leader as an out-in-front force of nature, bursting with...

The Game With A Serious PurposeThis kinaesthetic approach to team self-discovery and efficiency improvement has proved itself again, this time in the UK.The Method Teaming Game is a hands-on encounter around a table where team members learn more about...

Most business teams work at about 32% efficiency, according to research by Gallup, Deloitte et al. It’s not because they’re lazy, it’s because people are often given tasks they’re not naturally good at. Then they’re asked to work with other people who are...

Unless your company has been unbelievably lucky, few of your people are in the right seats. According to Gallup, Deloitte and others, we spend only 30% of our time doing the work that our brains are hardwired for. That means that 70% of the time we are...

The analogy of the slow-boiled frog is the one that comes to mind. Businesses have always paid top salaries and always reaped only 40% of the potential (according to Gallup and many others). It’s expected.  Why leap out of the pan when it’s always been...

In the old days, new company employees joined their new team fully expecting it to be the greener grass they had always hoped for. The first day was great. There were smiles from everyone, lunch with the team leader and a handshake with the big boss on the...

What is the point of having a culture where everyone comes to work energised, team members work together like a swiss watch and the atmosphere is electric 25 hours a day – if it doesn’t impact business performance? Obviously the answer is no point at all....

Talent loves to work with talent. There is no greater excitement for someone bursting with talent (which is all of us) than to come to work knowing you are in a team where everybody is doing a job they love and doing it well. This is the essence of teams...

How many of the people you hired deliver on the potential they showed at interview? Managers spend a lot of their time recruiting to fill vacancies in their teams. Yet they frequently complain that the highly accomplished people they hired never seem to...

I sat next to a HR consultant at a wedding reception last week, a charming, intelligent man in his 60s. I learnt about his challenges in dealing with CEOs and the tendencies of some of them to sack people for unforgivable errors, like sitting the wrong way...