Thoughts

  At least three people I know well have recently decided to resign from their jobs. With no new job to go to.   These are not people at the beginning of their career who are going backpacking overseas. They’re not people at the end of their career, dialling their work hours right down. And […]

I moved to New Zealand almost 15 years ago. I found myself in a new country, with no track record, no real understanding of the business or cultural landscape, and no real idea of where to begin. I was starting afresh. It was a little lonely, and more than a little scary.   Back then, […]

I’ve just polled the Change Makers community about how they feel about the latest Covid lockdown in New Zealand. Here are the preliminary results: This picture shows a fairly strong leaning towards ‘amazing opportunity’. In people’s comments below the poll, most people reported that they had somewhat mixed feelings. That’s how I’m feeling too. I’m […]

There’s a saying: “you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” I really like that as an idea. Yet I think it can go further. What if those five people were all of the same type? Wouldn’t that just be just one person multiplied by five? How useful would that […]

I just watched Seven Years in Tibet. Brad Pitt stars as a headstrong mountaineer who becomes a prisoner-of-war in 1930’s Tibet. After multiple solo attempts, he escapes by teaming up with his fellow prisoners. When he’s out, he says “I’m going it alone” and runs off into the wilderness. Yet another movie upholding individual heroism. […]

“If you care about what they care about, they’ll care about what you care about.” Anonymous.   I watched The Trial of the Chicago Seven on Netflix the other day. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth the watch. It’s a dramatisation of the 1968 indictment and trial of seven protestors charged with intent […]

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, […]

Remove the peripheral to get to the real. Jenny Brown-Zikic   Last week I went out to dinner with some friends for the first time in eight weeks. After an extended hiatus, the anticipation was high, and I wasn’t disappointed. Meeting face to face rather than through Zoom brought a totally different quality to the […]

I was recently leading a workshop for managers on how conversations shape culture. I noticed most of the managers were operating from a context of their formal conversations – the ones behind closed doors, or the ones they had scheduled in their calendars. Without thinking too much, I found myself drawing this on the board. […]

Most days when I’m home in Wellington, I take a three minute walk down my street to the local coffee shop for a fix. And not just a fix of coffee. Also a fix of inspiration. This morning, my good man Roger and I chatted away as he made my usual flat white. And then […]