Thoughts

    Do you want feedback about you when you’re at your best? Are you wondering how you can make a difference to others in the most authentic way? Then read on.   Getting honest, affirming feedback helps you to grow your self-awareness, and better understand what you are all about. In the Havard Business […]

At a recent workshop in Wellington, I was in conversation with a group of senior managers about the people whom they believed were most effective leaders in times of change. After some reflection, here are some of the words that come out to describe those people:   One of the managers stopped for a bit […]

Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to observe a large number of ‘fireside chats’: those events where a senior leader comes in and speaks with a group of up-and-coming leaders, usually in the context of a leadership development programme. I’ve noticed two distinct approaches to how the senior leader will show up and engage. […]

I was watching a guitar tutorial on YouTube a couple days ago. The instructor was really good, both as a player, and as a teacher. (By the way, he’s teaching one of the coolest songs you can play on acoustic guitar, ‘Never Going Back Again’ by Fleetwood Mac). Towards the end of the tutorial, the […]

When people talk about achieving ‘work life balance’ and other such notions, I get the impression that they’ve got some nirvana in mind where everything is perfectly sorted. There are no tensions or conflicts to solve. Nothing changes. Sounds boring to me. Beyond boring, it’s not actually how life works. To my mind, ‘balance’ doesn’t […]

Earlier this week I was talking with a leader who said to me “I feel different to other people in my organisation. I don’t feel like I’m ‘one of them’. I’m committed, but it’s kind of uncomfortable.” I simply said to him “that’s great!” It’s your difference that defines you, not your sameness. As Brene […]

  After shooting this video, I spent plenty more down-time on that T-Bar. I got to thinking about the challenge of choosing to slow down more often. I’ve known for a while about the importance of slowing down and reflecting, and I consider myself to be someone who builds in regular down-time. But my life […]

Last week my family and I went to Java, Indonesia. Our destination was a surf camp that was a bit of a mission to get to – an eight-hour drive from Denpasar in Bali, including a car ferry across to Java, and then down through the jungle from there. We’d heard from friends that the […]