A useful book on communcation
Conversations for Change: 12 Ways to Say it Right When it Matters Most
by Shawn Kent Hayashi.
Shawn introduces some highly useful and important ideas that contribute to effective communication – essential for building trust and buy-in from your people. It contains useful metaphors and concepts that any leader or manager will find highly relevant, practical and easy to implement.
Those ideas include:
Why emotional intelligence is so important in leadership – According ...
The Power of Habit
Charles Duhigg has written a powerful book that is a must read for anyone serious about leadership and success.
In The Power of Habit, he documents how our everyday actions are governed by habits and how changing even one habit can have a massive domino effect. One case study worth mentioning concerns how Alcoa, a US Aluminum manufacturing company turned around the company culture with just one small change.
In 1987, at a time when people were more focused on maximising profits than ...
Yelling Doesn’t Work
An oldie but still gold.
In the early 1960′s, when Tom Watson Jr. was CEO of IBM he discovered that one of his executives made a mistake costing the company $10 million. He called the man into his office asking him “Do you know why I called you here?” The man replied “I assume you’re going to fire me.”“Fire you?” Watson replied. “I spent $10 million educating you. I just want to be sure you learned the right ...
Quick productivity boost
Throw out your 10-page to-do list.
It’s daunting and overloads your working memory, which is energy intensive with a short bandwidth.
Instead, keep a shorter list for each day that you can tick off as you go. Maximum one page.
Make sure you have a few easy items (low hanging fruit) that you can accomplish easily for a quick win. If you find that you’re stuck or stalled, choose a small item to build back your momentum.
If you really have that many things to manage over time, ...
Google and Goldman—Think Fast!
Companies take note: in the social media age, your dirty laundry is fast becoming everyone’s business.
First Greg Smith of Goldman Sachs, now ex-Google’s James Whittaker is sharing his reasons for leaving, reaching a global audience fast. In each case they are offering us a window into cultural issues and actions taken from false logic that should serve as a warning to the companies.
Unfortunately, it is too late for Goldman to avoid the current meltdown. Clients have voted with ...
A sum of small conversations
I’ve been speaking a lot about the power of conscious and unconscious communicatioins in driving people’s performance. The effect of small gestures and asides have a powerful impact on others that extends far beyond what you might think it possible. Recently though, I remembered my experience with a former manager and it brought home to me just how insidious those conversations can be, especially if coming from a leader, manager or someone in a position of authority.
Years ago in ...
Five Ways to be a Smart Leader
I feel a bit silly here. Since my book was published, I’ve been writing and speaking a lot about different aspects of leadership but still haven’t shared the actual model that was the framework for my whole book!
The SHAPES model shows the interrelated pillars of leadership excellence, inside a context for integrity that translates into success when action is taken. There are too many nuances for a single blog, but I’ll start with one element. Since it is intuitive to start at ...
The Importance of Random Acts of Kindness
Take a moment and write down how many people you’ve come into contact today. How many people you have connected with. How many you have spoken with (even for a moment) looked at, stood or sat near, emailed, or in some way communicated with.
Then think about this.
Every single one of those moments was an opportunity to make a difference to that person.
Every single one of those moments was a chance to not only make their day a little better, but to increase your own happiness.
Human ...
Monty Python Goes to Canberra
I don’t think anyone’s surprised to find that Edelman’s 2012 Trust Barometer revealed that only 33% of Australians trust government to do what is right and 60% of Australians do not trust government leaders to tell the truth.
In their rush to tell us they’re the better woman or man to run the government, political leaders like Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard appear to have forgotten that what’s is really important to us is well…us.
Power is a demanding mistress ...
