Thoughts

Want to make change happen? Wondering how to make it easier? Great. Here’s an approach to do just that. Now is a good time to make change happen. This is a time of great unlocking, as I’ve written about in my chapter in Julia Steel’s recently published book Unite. Many of the rules and assumptions […]

My coach asked me a good question the other day: “What’s your aspiration?” I recoiled from the question. “Why the reaction?” she asked. “It’s that word: aspiration. It speaks of striving, of a gap to be filled.” I realised in that moment that I’m over filling gaps. It’s exhausting. And I’m not sure it serves […]

Have you ever felt frustrated that all of your efforts in trying to make change happen might count for nothing? Do you keep chipping away but see no real progress? Here’s a story that will encourage you to keep going. Last week at one of our Change Makers’ workouts, our guest conversationalist Justin Douché introduced […]

  I’ve been trawling the archives of the past eight years of my blog posts, and I came across this little piece that I think is just as relevant today as when I first wrote it back in 2013. So I’m sharing it again now in the hope that its message gets you thinking about […]

A few months back, as New Zealand was entering lockdown for the first time, I ran a set of webinars to support leaders and their people to navigate a brave new world of work. One of the most popular webinars was called “Remote Doesn’t Have To Mean Remote”, which I led with my colleague and […]

“Any idiot can face a crisis. It’s the day-to-day living that wears you out” – Anton Chekhov   Over the past week or so, as COVID-19 has paid another visit to New Zealand’s shores, I’ve noticed how many leaders have yet again gone into the ‘Covid-mode’ of leadership. ‘Covid-mode’ is all about reacting to problems. […]

    “…there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites…” Carl Jung   Living life well, and doing leadership well, doesn’t come that easy, right? I think one of the reasons is that, if we’re truly leaning into it, we face tensions everywhere we turn. Those tensions that arise because we’re faced […]

The other day, I was talking with my assistant, Jasmine. We were observing how the What’s On Your Mind podcast that I do with Alicia McKay is getting more and more popular. Jasmine responded with “yeah, that’s because you and Alicia are doing in public what lots of people want for themselves: engaging in deep, […]

Back in March 2020, as the world plunged into Covid craziness, I wrote Now Is The Time To Lead. Here we are in July 2020, and now is still the time to lead. The world is ripe for positive change, and the opportunity to reshape it is right in front of us all. As my […]

I was on the train last week, heading into the CBD. As we pulled into Wellington station, the lady sitting next to me caught my eye. She launched into a mini-rant about racism and how she couldn’t believe we hadn’t solved this problem yet. “It’s the 21st century! We should have this sorted by now, […]