21-days to transformational leadership

I was struck by a comment Ian Livingston, Chief Executive of BT, made in a recent press interview. He was quoted as saying, “I say to my team their job is to tell me how they can improve, my job is to tell them how well they have done – and not the other way round.”

This may seem like basic common sense – but it is not common practice in business. There is a breathtakingly simple – and potentially transformational – habit that a leader can develop. For the next twenty one consecutive working days, spot what people are doing right and tell them. And for the next twenty one consecutive working days, notice what people do wrong and bite your lip! Read more

Every moment is a choice about the future

Did you know that 90% of the thoughts we have today are the same thoughts we had yesterday? What does that say about the general quality of our thinking? High achievers choose their beliefs and their self-talk carefully. They choose their thoughts.

How exactly do you choose your thoughts when they often seem to spring up from nowhere? Wayne Dyer taught me to think of thoughts as passing buses: you may not be able to choose which ones stop at the bus stop, but you certainly can choose whether to get on board or not. We cannot necessarily prevent a negative thought occurring, but we can decide the extent to which we dwell on it. Read more

An extraordinary, humbling tribute to Pathfinder

In October 2011 I was invited to design a two-day leadership event for IBM Global Business Services. The design was based around our Pathfinder Framework.
Senior consultants from Sheppard Moscow and an innovative and frontier-stretching team from IBM worked closely with me on the event design and the facilitation of breakout sessions for approximately 200 executives and partners.
Five months later, the impact was assessed in a series of extraordinary interviews. In a word – breathtaking!
We repeated the event for Associate partners yesterday. This commission ranks as one of the most fulfilling – and effective – of my work at IHD.
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The Art & Power of Non-Judgement

From birth we seem to be programmed to judge things as good or bad, right or wrong, safe or unsafe.

This has been so harmful in my life – causing me to miss opportunities, mis-judge people, mis-evaluate situations that I have been practising non-judgement as much as i can and it has probably been the most significant and valuable change I have made in my life. Read more