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Search Results for: stress test

The company on a treadmill: devise routine Stress Tests

Banks have had stress tests (imposed) to see how they would cope with difficult market conditions. For example, in the US, a typical stress scenario in the past has been: 50 per cent drop in equity prices; 21 per cent decline in housing prices; unemp[...]

The company on a treadmill: devise routine Stress Tests

Banks have had stress tests (imposed) to see how they would cope with difficult market conditions. For example, in the US, a typical stress scenario in the past has been: 50 per cent drop in equity prices; 21 per cent decline in housing prices; unemp[...]

Do you have a ‘Chaos Monkey’ in your management system? You should.

Many organizations have a Risk Management function of some sort. Often scattered amongst different constituencies: manufacturing, engineering, R&D etc. It is also embedded in Quality Systems, such as ISO. Financial institutions, or indeed financi[...]

If you are not in crisis, reboot. Declare inflection points. That’s readiness.

Some leaders are very good in a crisis. They may or may not acknowledge that, but the adrenaline of the crisis is fantastic for them. These people always explain to me the beauty of (finally) seeing employees aligned, super-committed, engaged, going [...]

The company that gets better and better after disruption, disorder or chaos.

Nassim Taleb Antifragile concept is perhaps one of the most attractive frames (conceptual, philosophical, practical) we have had recently. By describing antifragile as the opposite to fragile, v[...]

Daily Thoughts run up to end of the year (4/5) If you are not in crisis, reboot. Declare inflection points. That’s readiness.

Some leaders are very good in a crisis. They may or may not acknowledge that, but the adrenaline of the crisis is fantastic for them. These people always explain to me the beauty of (finally) seeing employees aligned, super-committed, engaged, going [...]

The company that gets better and better after disruption, disorder or chaos.

Nassim Taleb Antifragile concept is perhaps one of the most attractive frames (conceptual, philosophical, practical) we have had recently. By describing antifragile as the opposite to fragile, v[...]

Do you have a ‘Chaos Monkey’ in your management system? You should.

Many organizations have a Risk Management function of some sort. Often scattered amongst different constituencies: manufacturing, engineering, R&D etc. It is also embedded in Quality Systems, such as ISO. Financial institutions, or indeed financi[...]

Value is an overused term in business and, as such, it’s becoming meaningless

Human behaviour laws are unfair. Positive or negative consequences are disproportionate to the causes. Get used to it as leader.

An old patient was concerned about her hair. A nurse came in at 7 am to put colour in her hair. ‘Nurses are saints’, she said. All nurses? That’s unfair. (A real example from one of our Viral Change programmes). We have a reasonable level of[...]

And the frog said, next time buy yourself a thermometer

The old tale of ‘Boiling Frogs’ says that there are too basic ways to boil a frog. One, the frog is thrown into a boiling water pan. The frog jumps out one millisecond later. Close to first degree burns, but alive. And learns the lesson. The s[...]

The Irish Health Service's silent culture revolution was driven by ‘if-not-us-who?’ employees

Four years ago, starting in the Midwest of Ireland and replicating to other parts of the country, a bottom up social movement, ‘Values in Action’, started to shape th[...]

Getting things done: ‘Relationships’ vs. ‘Structures’

A while ago, a telecom client complained to me about his particular division which seemed to work entirely ‘on relationships’. People got things done because of their own strong networks and highly cultivated personal connections. That was the et[...]

The slack advantage: ‘The minute the future becomes unpredictable, efficiency can become your enemy’.

An interview with Adam Pisoni, American entrepreneur and previously, co-founder of CTO and Yammer, brings back to my table the issue of efficiency. Pisoni is very articulate on this: “Effic[...]

Your mind may trick you, the truth will set you free

You have bought a pair of very expensive tickets for a classical music concert but the traffic is horrible and you are late. They don’t let you enter into the concert hall until the next break. Never mind, the first piece of the concert wasn’t th[...]

There is nothing I can do’ must be fought before it becomes collective belief.

Feeling trapped, is at the core of some aspects of one’s mental health, and also organizational distress. The deep awareness and study of this feeling is rather old, going back to psychologist Martin Seligman’s studies in 1967 in Pennsylvania.[...]

The Irish Health Service silent culture revolution is driven by ‘if-not-us-who?’ employees

Two years  ago, starting in the Midwest of Ireland, a bottom up social movement, ‘Values in Action’, started to shape the culture of the Irish Health Service (HSE) . On top of their day jobs, employees joined in to create a system of peer-to-pee[...]

Weekly Recap: Leadership (part 3 of 3)

Here is the third of our favourite posts on Leadership. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

The ‘research’ for the real-real unique attributes of world class leadership is embarrassing.

I sometimes think that[...]

Mind the frame ( or you may regret your frame of mind)

George Lakoff, a familiar name in these Daily Thoughts, is on a mission. The US cognitive psychology specialist,  emeritus professor, political adviser and communications expert, wants to convince those who dislike, disagree, detest or are enraged b[...]

The ‘research’ for the real-real unique attributes of world class leadership is embarrassing.

I sometimes think that management thinking, management speak and management education (that includes ‘research’) makes everything possible to avoid critical thinking. The same Die-Hard Managers who love the certainty of a spreadsheet and believe [...]

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  Daily Thoughts

September 27th, 2023

Redefining Talent Wealth

The war on talent McKinsey consultants started it with a book of the same title. By focusing on what it […]
September 8th, 2023

What I Learnt From The Monks: A Little Anthropology Of Leadership And Space On One Page

My friends, monks of a Benedictine monastery in the Highlands, Scotland, spend most of the time in silence. I mean, […]
August 23rd, 2023

Can We Rescue DEI From Its Trap (The Label)?

Most of the problems and challenges in organizations, together with most of the solutions, are behavioural in nature. It’s about […]
August 10th, 2023

Restructuring to force collaboration, is likely to create more anxiety than collaboration. Structural solutions for behavioural problems hardly work.

Sometimes restructuring is done with the intention of solving a collaboration problem. ´A people´ don’t talk to ´B people´; if […]
July 18th, 2023

The ‘Impossible To Disagree With’ School Of Management

‘Good leaders have empathy, respect employees and set the example. If you want to change things, you need to have […]
June 29th, 2023

Large scale change is not small scale change repeated many times. Small wins repeated are lots of small wins.

Large scale change, as a series of cascading small scale interventions (often under the philosophy of ‘small wins’) has dominated […]
June 6th, 2023

Culture change is not long and difficult. But we make it so…

I suppose the question is how long is long and how difficult is difficult? In general, business and organizational consulting have […]
May 19th, 2023

Value is an overused term in business and, as such, it’s becoming meaningless

Value, as usually used, means transactional monetary value. Usually it doesn’t mean intrinsic value, or value per se. For example, […]
May 4th, 2023

The importance of ‘critical thinking.’ Your own critical thinking is more effective at making your workplace better than any generic employee survey.

Build your own Employee Engagement argument for free. You can’t go wrong. Here are three baskets full of concepts: Basket […]
April 21st, 2023

´Busy-Ness’ Is A Trap

I went to a big conference where I was introduced by the chairman like this: “Welcome everybody. Lovely to have […]
April 14th, 2023

Training and culture change. The love affair that ends in tears.

It seems to be very hard for people to get away from the idea that if we just put individuals […]
April 11th, 2023

Teamocracies and Networkracies have different citizens: in-Habitants in team-work, riders in net-work

The old view of the organization is something close to the old concept of a medieval city, where citizenship was […]
April 5th, 2023

3 Ways To Get Approval From Your CEO Or Your Leadership Team

Way number 1: My team has developed these three options, A, B and C. Which one do you want us […]
March 29th, 2023

A Cheat Sheet To Create A Social Movement Tip = to shape organizational culture since both are the same.

Mobilizing people. This is another of the Holy Grails (how many have I said we have?) in management. Whether you […]
March 16th, 2023

Critical Thinking Self-Test: A 10 Point Health Check For Your Organization And Yourself. If any of these are a good picture of your organization, you need to put ‘critical thinking’ in the water supply.

Test yourself, and your organization. Do any of these apply? Doing lots, too fast without thinking. High adrenaline, not sure […]
March 9th, 2023

A culture of safety or a culture of training in safety?

Cultures are created by behaviours becoming the norm. Safety is at the core of many industries. Significant budgets are allocated […]
March 2nd, 2023

Empowerment is an output. If you can visualize it, you can craft it.

The real question is, what do you want to see happening so that you can say ‘people are empowered’? Employee […]
February 24th, 2023

A simple question will jumpstart your organization into change. It will also save you from months of pain spent reorganizing your people and teams.

The following line will short-cut months of (building) ‘alignment’, integration, reorganization, team building, coalition building, and any situation in which Peter, […]
February 20th, 2023

Lead Via Peer-To-Peer Networks – If you don’t lead via peer-to-peer networks, you’re only driving your car in first gear.

Peer-to-peer work, transversal, spontaneous or not, collaboration, peer-to-peer influence, peer-to-peer activities of Viral Change™ champions or activists, all of this is the […]
February 7th, 2023

Write a script, not a strategic plan

If you care about the journey and the place, you need a story. If you have a good, compelling one, […]
January 26th, 2023

3 self-sabotaging mechanisms in organizations

Organizations, like organisms, have embedded mechanisms of survival, of growth and also of self-sabotage. These are 3 self-sabotage systems to […]
January 10th, 2023

Who should be involved in culture change? All inclusive versus going where the energy is.

Many times, in my consulting work, I find myself facing a dilemma: Do I involve many people on the client’s […]
December 23rd, 2022

Tell what won’t change – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

In any change programme that any organization wants to start, they will start by thinking of the things that they […]
December 16th, 2022

Scale It – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

When creating effective change in any organization, there are 40 rules that, in my experience, are the key between success […]
December 5th, 2022

Assets & Strengths Base – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

For more than 30 years I have been involved in ‘change’ in organizations. Again and again, some fundamental principles, and often […]
November 25th, 2022

Campaign It… is 1 of my 40 rules of change

When you filter out the noise, when you try to extract the core, the fundamentals, those ‘universal rules’ of change […]
October 31st, 2022

Hybrid or not hybrid? That’s not the question…

Culture is the new workplace If you want to have a conversation about the future of work, the nature of […]
October 24th, 2022

‘Powered by Viral Change™’: A Social Transformation Platform for the organization of the 21st Century

When we started to work on Viral Change™, as a way to create large scale behavioural and cultural change, and […]
October 14th, 2022

Corporate tribes, intellectual ghettos and open window policies

We talk a lot about silos in organizations usually in the context of Business Units or divisions. But these are not […]
October 7th, 2022

Peer Networks are the strongest force of action inside the organization

Peer-to-peer works, transversal, spontaneous or not, collaboration, peer-to-peer influence, peer-to-peer activities of Viral Change™ champions or activists, all of this is […]