We experience Cialdini’s rules of influence relentlessly. His insights into how people are persuaded has shaped sales, marketing and politics. But how do you influence your closest colleagues effectively, collaboratively and in line with your values? The rules of influence – scarcity, social proof and so on – still apply. But here are some ways […]
Executive mindset
How does an executive actually think? The CEO and the executive team face tasks few others understand and often discover, on achieving their new role, that these tasks require an executive mindset that is subtly different from the mindset of a strong manager or technical expert. There are two issues: How does an executive need […]
Inspiration
Is it enough to lead? Aren’t your followers thirsting for something more – for inspiration? Locked down and masked, breathing itself became a worry. Breathing freely not only in the real world but in everything. We want to let our emotions breathe, let our minds breathe. Inspiration (in-breath-ing) is a deep caress of the soul, […]
Opportunity
You have a choice. Grasp an opportunity when it turns up. Position yourself where opportunity is more attractive and likely. Create opportunity out of difficulty. You have preferences and abilities when it comes to opportunity and others may judge you on your approach. By being clear on how you want to act around opportunity, […]
Renaissance
Covid lockdown time is flat time, disconnecting us from our past and our future. What have we been nurturing while cocooned in this flat time? Art. Art is bursting out. Art is our soul giving us the cure for flat time, for lost past and future. Art marks this moment, this Now in which we […]
Gratitude
Be grateful. Best to be slow with it. Slow enough to see afresh what’s already before you. All that you take for granted changes when you’re seeing clearly into everything to be grateful for. It’s what I see when looking over water, to the horizon, seeing the irresistible ebb and flow that have been the […]
Perfection
Some of us (Ok, me, and others like me…), were conditioned to believe that a perfect outcome is possible. Whatever the field, perfection is something we must strive for. It’s an idea that won’t go away. It’s the ideal twin to the other utopian world view – doom. Doom and perfection both drive us to […]
Decisions
Choice terrifies us, so the Existentialists tell us. It’s in there, with falling and freedom, an existential fear. Decisions need information and a process to a goal. When all is uncertain, we can’t see the goal and our old processes fail. Decisions feel impossible. Well, perfect decisions are impossible, but they always were. What does […]
Enough
Ten years ago Tony said to me, ‘I’ve decided to go for better, rather than more.’ Early in his career, my client had encountered a choice that many do not experience until much later. It boiled down to noting that he already had Enough. That was a tough insight, as he was neck deep in […]
Engagement
Leading is lonely but cannot be done alone. Its fuel is caring engagement. Caring engagement means being aware of who matters, specifically, to your role. It means crafting how you serve and how you seek support. It means seeing behind people’s facades, nurturing their hidden talents and helping with their hidden needs. Above all, it […]