Thoughts

So, I’m in Taipei right now. As you do. Yesterday I spent the day working with a group of up and coming expat Kiwis, teaching and exploring strategies for charting successful careers as global citizens. The group was engaged from the word go, and the discussion was lively, rich and productive for the six hours […]

Lessons from the Bush #2 In my last post, I wrote about my family’s experience of taking a circuit breaker: three months of living simply and adventuring in the Western Australian outback. Here’s another insight about living and leading from that amazing trip. We’d been travelling two months, and were happy, tanned and scruffy. We’d […]

Lessons from the Bush* #1 I’ve recently returned from an amazing three-month trip with my family in the wilds of the Kimberley region in Western Australia. After being back into the ‘real’ world (as some would say) for a few weeks, some interesting and useful insights about leadership and life have bubbled to the surface. […]

Busy? Sure! Getting stuff done? You bet. Learning? Hmmm… For most of us, the days can fly by, largely shaped by to-do lists, back-to-back tasks, and meetings. Business activities. Busyness activities. I assume the idea behind all of this is that if we get through all of the activities, we’ve done a good day’s work. […]

  A man sits down at a piano and prepares to play. When he starts, it’s not what you might expect. Take a few moments to go on this musical and emotional journey with Eric Lewis. You don’t need to watch the whole thing if you don’t have time – just a few minutes will […]

I’ve been working with a lot of clients lately who all seem to be in a similar space. Work is just crazy, and won’t let up. It’s not merely ‘busy’ – it’s something more. It’s not just a volume problem, it’s a complexity problem, and navigating a way forward is harder than ever. As someone […]

Whenever I’m working with leaders on their development, I find it useful to get a sense of where they are on the ‘career curve’. This helps us make sense of their context, and identify the most effective strategies that will help them keep moving forward. Here’s how I think about it:     This is […]

Here’s a simple thought experiment that I was kicking around with a client the other day. Imagine you go into work tomorrow and the volume’s turned down to zero. Stuff’s happening as it usually would, you just can’t hear anything. What activities would you see people doing? If it’s your standard white collar workplace, it’ll […]

I started my career as a Chartered Accountant in one of those big firms full of suits, ties and protocol. Like many of my peers, not long after I qualified, I resigned and took off overseas to see what the rest of the world had to offer. The well-travelled path led to working in accountancy […]

“I’ve really been out of my comfort zone these past two weeks. It felt like I was learning a new job from day one. But I’ve learned and grown so much!” So said a client of mine on a coaching call earlier this week. She’d just finished a secondment on a high-profile project in an […]