Thoughts

When I was about six years old, my grandparents went on a cruise ship from Perth to Bali, Indonesia. That was back in the day when you were allowed to go on board the ship and visit when it was in port. Which is what my family planned to do. Except I was terrified of […]

In sport, there’s a saying that, when heeded, unquestionably boosts performance. “Where you look is where you go.” Similarly, in my years of working with leaders in all sorts of settings, I’ve noticed that a conversation’s outcome depends very much on where the conversation is focused. Take Bruce, an under-pressure senior leader who’s leading a […]

Too many people seek out stuff that actually doesn’t matter that much. And that seeking stops them from playing a bigger game.

In the last post, we discovered that giving permission to be curious is essential.  Now we’ll have a look at the next P: Purpose.   “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders.  Instead, teach them to yearn for the […]

  In my last post, we looked at the barriers to curiosity thriving at work.  Now, let’s have a look at what a ‘curious culture’ looks, sounds and feels like. When I look around and find organisations that have what I reckon are curious cultures, the one thing I notice is the energy in the […]

I recently assisted a government department to define their sense of common purpose, and to highlight the great aspects of their culture that they wanted to reinforce. It was a powerful experience that created ripple effects across the entire organisation. And I reckon that’s because of the way the senior leadership team chose to approach it. Traditionally, […]

Recently I was working with a group of about 20 people at a residential workshop. It was morning tea time and we were all gathered in a room relishing our caffeine top-ups. As facilitator, it was my job to keep people on time. I considered how I’d let them all know when it was time […]

“May you live in interesting times. May you live in an interesting age. May you live in exciting times.” This phrase purportedly has it’s origins in China.  Over the past couple of hundred years, its popularity in the western world has tended to peak whenever the world goes into turmoil. I think it’s fair to […]

When I was about 14 years old, I joined my school’s Army Cadet corps. It was attractive because I’d heard they did cool things out in the bush. I was having a bit of a hard time at boarding school, and I thought it would a great respite. It wasn’t what I expected. The rule-bound […]

  Late in 2015, I published ‘Three Things I’ve Learned This Year’. The most popular of those three with readers was the idea of ‘Be The Flower, Not The Bee’. In essence, strive less. I’m going to build on that idea here by showing you how to see and work with patterns to be more […]