Wargame For Autonomy
Autonomy is a great motivator. It’s one of the Basic Psychological Needs that people look for in their work (whether they realise it or not). We all like to feel we are in control. Feeling out of control can increase our anxiety and our dissatisfaction with our...
Who is your coach?
I am an executive coach. My role is to sit with leaders and ask questions, listen to their answers, challenge their thinking, hold them accountable for their actions and do so in a confidential and safe environment. I have a coach. His name is Graham. His role is to...
Are Your Company Values Adversely Impacting Your Culture?
I worked with a company once that had a value of ‘no mistakes’. It was on their website. What they were trying to communicate was, “Dear Customer, the product you will get from us is high quality and error-free.” The goal was aspirational, and the company CEO was...
Is Curiosity the Antidote to Anxiety?
I’m not talking clinical-level anxiety here. I’m talking about everyday fears and discomforts that we experience due to our relationship with uncertainty. We come across situations that make us feel uncomfortable every day. Consider the scenario of a networking event....
Don’t Interrupt The Struggle
As a leader, you may be really good at asking questions. If you are, you may notice that, on occasion, the person you’re asking questions of may be struggling with answering. This may be for several reasons: They may be accessing long term memory.They may be working...
Curiosity & Happiness
Do we want our people to be happy at work, or would we prefer they prioritise curiosity? Can they have both? In a 2009 paper on Curiosity and Interest [1], the authors discussed the difference between the two emotions. Curiosity has us looking for the new and...
Others’ Stories Matter Too
Yesterday I wrote about how we build stories about our identity around the events of our lives. I received the following feedback from Morgan (name changed for anonymity) who is a subscriber to my blog: "I love this. The counter-point is that since this lived...
Understand The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Ourselves.
This week I had the opportunity to see clients in the Western Sydney suburb of Emu Plains, the suburb where I spent my high school years and where my parents still live. After finishing my work, I took the opportunity to walk home and spend a night with mum and dad....
Is It Time To Take A Break?
I posted my daily blog later than usual yesterday. I usually have them drafted early and scheduled for publishing early each morning. This time I didn’t. I had a draft and I wasn’t happy with it. There was something I didn’t like about it. It didn’t read well and I...