Delegation is a critical skill for managers and leaders. When it goes well, it enables staff, expands skillsets, increases workflow and information-sharing. When it goes wrong, it can lead to disaster.
Continue reading “When delegation goes wrong”Category: Management
Procrastination and Prioritisation
I met someone at an event recently who asked: “Where did you find time to write your book?” If you’ve not seen the recent blog post, I published a book on management on January 16th. The answer I provided to him was two-fold: prioritise and avoid procrastinating.
Continue reading “Procrastination and Prioritisation”My First Book – Even Tougher Than Herding Cats
After roughly a year of work, I’ve completed the book I was writing titled “Even Tougher Than Herding Cats”.
The book is focussed on management advice for newly minted managers and those taking on broader management and leadership roles.
I know people say “It’s been a labour of love!” and it really has. Not just because I enjoy writing but because my family love me enough to allow me to pursue this kind of time-consuming project when I’m already away from them a lot because of my day job.
The book is available to order through Amazon Kindle Publishing services, with a published date of January 16th, 2020.
If you enjoy reading the blog, and you would like to support the book, I would really appreciate you picking up a copy (or five!).
While I enjoy writing, it is challenging. The response to this book will determine whether I invest the time I borrowed from my family to write another.
Thanks for your support, and please let me know what you think.
Beds in Mind
The duvet cover on my bed has poppers that hold it closed. There are about ten of them. If one opens, they will eventually all open. Last night, as I got out of bed to close four of those fasteners, it occurred to me that they are a bit of a metaphor for life. If you ignore the small things you know you should take care of they can expand to become more problematic. In this case, ignoring one open popper will result in feet being tangled and general discomfort. From a “duvet cover of life” perspective, it can result in more than a potential trip hazard getting out of bed. Ignoring small, but necessary things can result in less desirable outcomes.
Continue reading “Beds in Mind”Building culture
Organisational culture can be tough to define, but it can be even more challenging to create a sustainable, high-performance culture. Ben Horowitz describes culture as “What you do is who you are” – the title of his new book. Having worked in several large organisations over the past 25 years, I agree entirely. It’s not what we say that builds culture, and it’s definitely not what we think. It’s what we do.
Continue reading “Building culture”Beating the regret cycle
We are creatures built for regret. We procrastinate, avoid and sometimes fail to begin at all things that we know, deep down, we should do. There is a class of regret that comes from unwise actions or poorly chosen words, but this is not the worst. It’s the things we don’t do that cause the most guilt and regret. So how do we avoid the regret of things undone? Start. Something. Somewhere. Start now.
The importance of context – or a Why for a why
Context is vital. It provides a grounding for our conversations, focus and actions, both personal and professional. In the same way that punctuation can completely change the essence of a sentence (“Let’s eat, Grandma.” being very different from its non-punctuated alternative), so context can completely change the meaning of what we’re doing. From a work point of view, context helps people understand the why of what we do.