Crispin

In: Leadership, Transformation

Leading transformation is one of the most critical roles in any organisation, as the firm seeks to evolve systems, processes, technologies and the workforce. Understanding the potential challenges and best practice opportunities to drive a successful result is critical, so in this DIGEST article we bring together recent analysis and articles from McKinsey, Forbes Magazine, INSEAD, Kellogg Northwestern and Harvard Business Review. “Transformation is perhaps the most overused term in business. Often, companies apply it loosely—too loosely—to any form of change, however minor or routine. There are organizational transformations (otherwise known as org redesigns), when businesses redraw organizational roles and accountabilities. Strategic transformations imply a change in the business model. The term transformation is also increasingly used for a digital reinvention: companies fundamentally reworking the way they’re wired and, in particular, how they go to market.” (Bucy, Hall & Yakola, McKinsey 2016) Five Areas to Focus When Leading Transformation KarthikContinue Reading

In: Career, Career Development, Networking, Professional Networks

Cultivating a Professional Network takes time and effort, it is not set and forget but when you build the network that aligns with your interests and career aspirations it can be the difference between success and failure to launch. The connections we make at school, university and our first job all go on to have their own careers sometimes we maintain and build on those connections cultivating a professional network but other times we let potentially important relationships wither and become forgotten. Think about the fact that according to the Wall Street Journal as many as 80% of leadership jobs are not advertised. Learning about career opportunities that might suit your skills, having someone to recommend you or be a referee these are people in your professional network. But it is not limited to career progression, having a strong advisory network can be the difference from you being successful inContinue Reading

Do something purposeful

In: Corporate Social Responsibility, Lead, Leadership, Purpose

Purposeful leadership motivates individuals, empowers teams to achieve their greatest potential, provides clarity to organisational priorities and goals and connects everyone to broader societal goals. Purposeful leadership starts with clarity about your own purpose, and that can be difficult to get clear (at least at first). Pan Pan (founder of Swiss advisory firm Pantera Ventures) suggests that leaders wanting to identity their true purpose, need to start by considering the end of their careers. Consider the “end game”, where do you personally hope to be and what does success look like to you? Think about career achievements, what do you hope to have accomplished? What kind of impact will you make? What legacy, however small, would you like to leave behind? Leadership coach and author Mitchell Simon explains that one important aspect of being purposeful in leadership is to continually seek out feedback. Enabling the leader to better reflect ifContinue Reading

Decisions

In: Lead, Leadership

Every leader faces numerous decisions every day. Some of them are small and can be decided based on a simple framework, others however need different kinds of responses. These situations need a different toolset to inform the decision making process. Effective Delegation Sometimes the very smartest decision a leader can make is to delegate that decision to someone else. Victoria Medvec (Kellogg Insight, 2017) suggests that while every decision is made somewhere along a risk continuum, before deciding if you should be the one making the call, you should first consider the following: Who is involved in making the decision?Sometimes a low risk decision gets pushed up to the leadership team rather than being dealt with locally, there are risks that when this happens not only is it wasting executive time on what should be routine decisions, but also the executive may not be as well informed and has potentialContinue Reading

In: Career, Innovation, Purpose

The importance of innovation to help a firm stay ahead of its competitors is a regular topic for business and academic texts. Connecting innovation to purpose is about ensuring the magic of innovation is resonating deeply in the emotional drivers and values of staff responsible for ensuring its success. This is aligned to the question Simon Sinek asks when he says “Start with Why”. He writes about how leaders make the connection between an idea and what drives or motivates them (individual purpose). “Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with WHY. They realized that people won’t truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it.“ Simon Sinek – Start With Why 2011 Innovation is the way that successful companies grow. Innovation is the way new products and services are identified, provenContinue Reading

collaboration

In: Collaboration, Leadership

When you start working with someone new there are ways to make the fresh collaboration super effective. As Rebecca Zucker writes in HBR, before starting a new project, step back and get to know each other a little better. The way we collaborate can foster creativity and innovation but it also has potential to slow progress with meetings and communication required to keep everyone on the same page. In 2014 a Stanford study found that working together boosted intrinsic motivation, with participants persisting up to 64% longer on challenging tasks.  “Working with others affords enormous social and personal benefits” Gregory Walton, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford 2014 The process of collaboration can lead to overload as Cross, Rebele and Grant wrote in 2016. “At many companies, people spend around 80% of their time in meetings or answering colleagues’ requests, leaving little time for all the critical work they must complete onContinue Reading

In: Leadership

Being able to manage constantly changing priorities is an expected capability for todays leaders. Knowing how to juggle personal and business priorities and stay on top of the game requires knowing when to press pause. Pausing To Gain Focused Attention – When you are multi-tasking it is very likely that you are doing both tasks badly. By taking time to focus your attention and concentration on the task you get the best result. That requires pressing pause on something. Pausing To Improve Performance – The best way to improve is to reflect. Don’t just rush on, take time to consider what went well and what could have been improved. Learn to continually take the time to review and optimise. Pausing To Connect More Deeply – Superficial relationships are transparent and break quickly under strain. Leaders know that purposeful relationships take time and discipline. You need to invest in the otherContinue Reading

In: Career, Resilience

This year has been tough on everyone. I think that everyone is dealing with exhaustion. The pandemic, a global recession, working from home, studying from home, everyone home. What started as a refreshing change became challenging as families juggled work and home responsibilities. The constant fear of the pandemic as numbers grew then fell and then grew again. The recession and its its dramatic flow on impact to employment and financial security. This DIGEST comes from an article by Scott Eblin of the Eblin Group. Scott wrote about his own exhaustion this year and how his wife helped him with a process to getting life back in order. What Do You Do When You Are Dealing With Exhaustion Admit to yourself that you are exhausted – The first step with dealing with a problem is recognising that an it exists. No one can do their best work when they areContinue Reading

In: Career, Career Development

The power of saying no comes from being able to make a choice. When we choose to say no, we create a space for prioritising better things to say yes to. That’s the premise of this article. Kat Cole helps us understand we all have finite resources and important choices to make. Being able to say no to others (and ourselves) is a powerful muscle. It can help in building a strong career and a happy life. Failing to say no, (at the very least), can cause us to miss something bigger or greater.  Kat Cole It is when we take on work or activities that we should have declined. That is when we risk burnout, stress, high opportunity costs and more. Guidance on How to Start ‘Saying No’ When asked take on an activity, a job, volunteering, investment, donations, etc.. What we need to consider is how we goContinue Reading

In: Career, Resilience

Its going to happen, one day you will be working in a team and face challenges with an individual. Personality challenges with high conflict people happens in all teams and all organisations. Some people may feel incredibly negative to you. They may always need to have the last word. Some people love to split hairs on the finer details. Other people are complainers, blamers or flamers. There are those that wont follow process. Others who will only follow process to the letter. So knowing that we all deal with these people at different times, how can you best manage that relationship to be as productive as possible. Avoid Assuming Intent It is the classic mistake. You are offended or frustrated by the individual and so you already rationalise that the behaviour is deliberate, personal and it is them (not us) that need to change. Our brains have a confirmation bias,Continue Reading