List

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November 15th, 2016

Wicked Problems? Bad news. Prevent.

This is my list of characteristics of a Wicked Problem. The term was first described  by Rittel and Webber in […]
November 14th, 2016

‘Agency’ won the US election. Leaders of all sorts, politics and not, take note.

“Agency’ is the word used in social sciences to refer to the ability of an individual to act and make […]
November 13th, 2016

The birth of Behavioural Politics? (And Big Data has gone to the doctor for a check up).

What is happening in politics is the equivalent of what has happened to Economics years ago. Economics was based on […]
November 11th, 2016

The answer to Trumpism: get involved, call out the in-human, the non-truth. Start inside the organization.

When I first read Saul Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals’ a long time ago, I was impacted by a little paragraph […]
November 10th, 2016

I’ve seen another Black Swan and it’s Blonde. And he has grabbed America by the polls. And I’ve seen it on 9/11.

Black Swans stand for the unpredictable. I thought Brexit had occupied that space for a while. Then, well, you know. […]
November 8th, 2016

Give them an A. Then ask them to justify it.

Wonderful orchestra conductor, music educator and leadership speaker, Ben Zander, used to explain how he gives his music students an […]
November 7th, 2016

Rumours in the organization spread faster than light. Find your shelter and scrutinize. Then, call them out.

Years ago, 2011, when we had ‘the riots’ in the streets of London, The Guardian had a tracking system for […]
November 6th, 2016

Defeatism and cynicism are two toxic sisters that need to be challenged. Every minute of silence is a terrible complicity in the erosion of hope.

A slow growth cancer in organizations. People unnecessarily and gratuitously condemning the company to an impossible future: we will never […]
November 5th, 2016

Running organizations like a permanent Dragons’ Den is not my idea of good management.

Yes, we are in the era of ‘elevator pitches’, of one page formulations, a clear summary, a 140 character message […]
November 4th, 2016

25 facets of a Project Leader in a large organization (spoilt for choice)

Here you are. 25 identities for Project Leaders/Product Developers/Team leaders etc. Some you’ll like, some you won’t. Some you’ll think […]
November 3rd, 2016

What do I do with a resistant manager? Find five non-resistant colleagues, then…

A CEO asked me recently: what do you do with a manager who does not embrace or support change, in […]
November 2nd, 2016

Best Practice is dead and Benchmarking is not feeling very well

I think the current life cycle of a ‘best practice’ is a month or so. And this is benevolent. In […]
October 31st, 2016

News headlines about you three years from now. Try this in a group. Agree. Then start seducing people. (Leadership for dummies like me?)

Where are we going? That’s a simple question in leadership, from followers to leaders. Forgive me this non-sophisticated approach to […]
October 30th, 2016

How do we lead? Try not to start with ‘it depends’, please. (Split personality used to be a disorder, but not anymore. That’s the trap).

Beacon of moral values and having a secret affair? Anti poverty leader, managing a healthy Swiss bank account? Gender equality […]
October 29th, 2016

And she took the patient to see his cattle, and the patient progressed very well.

Amongst the fascinating, moving, brilliant stories of health care workers in Ireland, that I have come across during my work […]
October 27th, 2016

My well intentioned food fed my well intentioned thoughts. How weird.

In my job as an organization architect, I travel quite a lot and therefore I stay in lots of hotels […]
October 25th, 2016

‘Self, us and now’: the very old, uncomfortable trio for a modern look at leadership.

Hillel the Elder, or ‘Rabbi’ Hillel, a Jewish leader who died in 10 CE, is remembered outside the Jewish tradition […]
October 24th, 2016

The two in-trays: ‘Time will solve’ and ‘Time has solved’. And some gods to take care of.

It would be nice if we could just sit in the middle of the two in-trays, right and left, and […]
October 23rd, 2016

Exercise: 100 people vote on jumping off a cliff. 48 say no; 52 say yes. The majority wins and collective death looks inevitable. Discuss.

100 people get together and decided that it would good to jump off a cliff. Some people think it’s crazy. […]
October 21st, 2016

And suddenly there are lots of Black Swans around! What are we supposed to do?

The Black Swan theory says that… all swans are white, and your Strategic Swan Management Department should cater for a […]