List

To search my website, please use the form below.

  Daily Thoughts

May 30th, 2016

The pilgrimage to the top of the Leadership Mountain to ask for permission, blessings and a bit of gratification.

Scenario 1: The Leadership Team/top Management Team is in high control mode. They feel they need to make many kinds […]
May 28th, 2016

To decrease uncertainty is not always difficult. These examples show the big difference.

Read the following pairs. Notice which ones make you more comfortable. ‘You’re in a queue/line and we will respond to […]
May 27th, 2016

Competing on mistakes.

I have referred several times to Charles Munger, investor, critical thinker, ‘librarian’ (he reads more books than anybody else): we […]
May 26th, 2016

It’s cool to think. It’s not cool to do crap things.

I am borrowing this line from Obama’s speech at Rutgers. Of course he was referring to certain presidential candidate. “Facts, […]
May 25th, 2016

Within us, between us and around us. The only 3 chapters of Psychology and the only 3 modules of leadership development.

Trying to make Psychology easy! There are 3 spaces, and only 3 that matter: Within us: how can we get […]
May 24th, 2016

Thanks for your email. A proper robot would have done better.

Dear Mr Herrero. I have been trying to contact you but you were busy. No, you haven’t, we have no […]
May 23rd, 2016

Why people ‘with leadership traits’ don’t become leaders. Waiting for the other half of the article.

Jack Welch, ex CEO of GE and Suzy Welch, Journalist, author and Jack’s wife have written in Linkedin, in one […]
May 22nd, 2016

Most good clues about the culture of the organization can be found in the invisible, the unsaid. This is where serious culture work needs to start.

Public sector health in many parts of the world has been financially squeezed. Committed health workers have continued to deliver […]
May 21st, 2016

Always attacking ‘the roots of problems’ is not necessarily the best route.

That traditional logic is unfortunately very weak. That logic only works if we can really find those roots. But, take […]
May 19th, 2016

Bring the aliens. The others are too familiar with the solution

‘Familiarity breeds contempt’, the proverb says. But in management, it also breeds lost of content and satisfied people. We are […]
May 18th, 2016

Small steps, small wins against an accelerated reality. Sensible strategy or a suicidal note?

‘I am convinced that a well thought out “small wins approach” is the premier path to effective strategy implementation, and […]
May 17th, 2016

If we wear earplugs, the annoying noise of the organization would disappear and, life would be much better.

A friend of mine told me a story about his laptop. It got warmer and warmer; the fan on all […]
May 16th, 2016

The secret weapon of digital transformation revealed: human judgement. In doubt, ask Facebook

An unexpected ‘revelation’ by Facebook (also known as the mother of all algorithms) gives us an important insight about the […]
May 15th, 2016

‘Every word that she says is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’. The Post-Truth Era is upon us.

I’ve learned this quote from an excellent article in The Guardian by Jonathan Freedland about ‘post-truth politics’ (Post-truth politicians such […]
May 14th, 2016

Why I will go back to the hotel after a bad experience and a long email, but not to another which gave a discount on the bill

Something went wrong with the room allocation in my hotel. When I arrived on the 3rd floor with my plastic […]
May 13th, 2016

What the brain teaches us about consumer behaviour. Fascinating.

Neuroscientists at the Advance Brain Research Institute in Minnesota have found that there is a direct connection between ‘intention to […]
May 12th, 2016

Inefficiencies, frustrations and unhappiness? Is the right path to growth, congratulations.

A good article came to me via my colleague Caroline, always ready to save some gems from my spam filter […]
May 11th, 2016

Management upside down: global is local, leadership goes grassroots, top is at the bottom, and traditional management needs a retirement party.

It is perhaps the Age of Inversion. The weights have gone the other way. Globalization, big G, or small g, […]
May 10th, 2016

Can we agree on these rules? Since life is short, I thought I would suggest some etiquette for our collaboration.

Don’t leave around a floating opinion, ended by ‘in my opinion’, not leading anywhere in particular. That is just use […]
May 9th, 2016

You can only change ‘the culture’ if you have ‘one’. Otherwise, the problem and the answer are both plural.

The main reason why many cultural change and transformation programmes in large organizations fail is because you can’t change ‘the […]