Thoughts

Commitment + Systems = Change

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing that at some level you want to create positive change in 2021. Maybe it’s for your industry. Maybe for your organisation or team. Maybe it’s just for you. How set up are you to do that successfully? Here are some ideas that I reckon help a huge amount. Commitment […]

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Here’s How I Learn

Towards the end of 2020, I worked with one of New Zealand’s highest profile public sector executive teams. In the year that was, the CEO and the organisation had been under the pump and was in the media spotlight for most of the year. They were keen to reflect and review how they’d led during […]

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Pescatarian Muffins

When we follow the process blindly we can totally miss the point. Last week in a workshop we were served pescatarian muffins. Well, technically just one pescatarian muffin, because there was only one labelled like that. There was a whole other tray of muffins which looked just the same as the solo pescatarian one. I […]

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Three Things I’ve Learned From 2020

  How’s your 2020 been?   I’ve been reflecting on my own journey through 2020. January seems such a long time ago. Back then, I was snowboarding in Japan with my family. Covid19 was just beginning to make headlines over the water in China. As we landed back in New Zealand, we were aware of […]

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Troublemaker or Change-Maker?

“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 […]

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How To Experiment

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 […]

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Aspiration, or Essence?

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 […]

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Ping Pong Balls and Change-Making

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 […]

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Stepping Into Complexity (Repost)

  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 […]

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People Leadership for the Long Haul

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 […]

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