A Riddle
Here’s a riddle: What’s your biggest asset, AND your biggest potential liability, yet doesn’t appear on your balance sheet? Not exactly the Riddle of the Sphinx is it? The answer is, of course, your people. Here are some of my observations, based on all the...
A Nation of Waiters, or a Nation of Winners?
Napoleon famously called England “A nation of shopkeepers”. We’re in danger of becoming a Nation of Waiters. I’m not talking about the people who bring you lunch in a restaurant. I’m talking about people who delay and delay before taking action. It’s completely...
Dodging the Circular File
The laser printer was whirring when the new saleswoman walked into Dave’s office. Dave was the mentor she’d been assigned when she joined the company, a multinational engineering conglomerate. He was their top sales producer. A real living legend. “You’re so lucky to...
Defeat the temptation of the Silver Bullet
Temptation: it always seems like a good idea at the time Many leaders I meet are searching for a silver bullet.Feeling pressure to improve performance, they look too quickly to the outside for answers—shuffling their management teams, buying and selling businesses,...
The Way Out Is Through The Door
A psychotherapist friend of mine, call him, ‘Max', told me this story about a client he once helped. The guy said he wanted to give up smoking cannabis. He’d seen a bunch of therapists who’d tried all kinds of reasonable-sounding manoeuvres including: Education about...
How Ratan Tata avoided a ‘Kodak Moment’
Imagine the scene. It’s the early hours of the morning. A young engineer lies awake, unable to sleep because of the excitement. After what seems like an hour of trying to find a comfy position to nod off, he checks the clock. Just fifteen minutes have elapsed since...
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