As part of my coaching I often have conversations with people about major career decisions. Should I take this job? Should I pursue this opportunity? Should I accept this promotion? An important part of answering these questions depends upon the way you view your career. When I started out a long time ago in a…
Local Government ‘Early Adopters’
A lot of the work we do at the Centre for Organisation Development is with local government. It is interesting then that it has taken me so long to put my finger on what it is about local government organisations that make them different from so many other organisations. I think it is, that they…
The Best Way to Reward Your Team
I recently had an important meeting with the Harley Owners Group. Given I was a co-founder, a life member, the #1 ticket holder and it was 30 years since we started, it was a landmark occasion. This made me think about how we reward our people. What’s the best way to reward your team? To…
Three Essential Strategies You Need to Grow Your Career
Over the years I’ve coached hundreds of people – maybe even a thousand – across many organisations and at different levels, from graduates just starting out through to CEOs considering retirement. As you might expect, over time you start to see the same things emerge about what works and what doesn’t as people grow their…
How Understanding Neuroscience Will Improve Your Life
You might have noticed in the past decade we have learnt more about the human brain than in all the time since we started walking upright. It sure helps that we can now see a living working brain in action as compared to simply guessing about how our grey matter functioned from the outside –…
Leadership Secrets from Michael Phelps Coach
Athletically, I’m probably as far from swimmer Michael Phelps as you can get. I’m not a big sports fan either. And I haven’t been swimming for a long, long time. (In case you don’t know, Phelps is the most successful Olympic athlete of all time. He has 22 medals – 18 of them gold.) While…
How to Build Organisational Strength
Now, we want to turn our attention to building organisational strength. Imagine if all of your people were doing work they loved most of the time… (And I need to emphasize ‘most of the time’. The expectation we can always be working in our strengths and doing things we love all of the time simply…
The Hollywood Effect
How do you make a movie that in less than two hours shows events that might last decades or a lifetime? The bottom line is that you have to leave things out. And if you want your movie to be interesting and exciting you have to leave out the boring bits. For instance, if we…
How to Coach Yourself to Better Presentations This Week
Given my occupation as a coach to leaders in organisations, it will come as no surprise for me to say that coaching is a valuable part of developing your career mastery. Sometimes we all need an external ear or voice to hear what’s going on in our world and share some strategic questions to…
What is the Primary Object of a Leader?
This is a big question. And a crucial one. The management and leadership heavyweights Drucker, Bennis, Kotter and others have all had their say on this crucial topic. And mostly they agree: Managers maintain, leaders change. It is not a question of change or not change, it’s a constant question of what…