WRITE
TO REVEAL
Looking below the surface of leadership, strategy and culture.
I love creating a fresh perspective on topics that are complex, even misunderstood, in a way that leaders can then use in their day job. I write about strategy, innovation, leadership, culture and personal development. I’ve worked with some wonderful co-authors such as Julian Birkinshaw, Dan Cable, Ron Carucci, Dorie Clark, Gena Cox, Art Kleiner, and Chris Rangen.
ARTICLE CATEGORIES
How to communicate your company’s strategy effectively
For too long, communicating strategy has been an afterthought. Executives have shared long, bombastic documents or withheld critical information and expected people to just ‘get it’. And it hasn’t worked. Greater external uncertainty, collaboration, employee anxiety, and organisational openness demands a change of approach.
How to stay cool when you’re put on the spot
Work is full of difficult moments where people catch you off guard and make you feel defensive. It’s hard to predict when they’ll occur and how they’ll play out, but you can prepare for them. I present a four-step framework to give you an opportunity to respond thoughtfully and confidently in these high-stakes moments.
Stop wasting people’s time with meetings
Some organisations are trying to get a grip on wasteful meetings. At their best, meetings are purposeful, inclusive, and participatory. Nevertheless, some leaders don’t pay much attention to their own contributions. At a time where there’s more focus on the quality of meetings, it pays to take the opportunity to showcase your best self to your colleagues and make sure you’re spending your time and energy wisely.
Mastering the connection between strategy and culture
Business leaders often are tempted to focus on strategy over culture. But the strongest companies take four key actions that deliver the best of both.
Every leader has flaws. Don’t let yours derail your strategy
The effects of a leader’s personality on an organisation’s culture have been long understood. But some personality flaws have a disproportionately negative impact on the quality and execution of strategic choices. These are far more than just annoyances, as they cast a large shadow across their organisations, contributing to failures in the design and execution of strategy.
What to know before you sign a payment-by-results contract
Paying for results is in vogue. The concept is fairly straightforward: The parties define the result up front, agree on a baseline, work out how confident the organization is in delivering the result, and then specify the expectation and payment in the contract. The idea isn’t new — it’s well established in online advertising, for example — but its application is becoming more widespread in the private and public sectors.
Five strategies to infuse D&I into your organisation
There’s widespread agreement on the need to improve diversity and inclusion in the workplace. But it’s not easy to deliver on the promises made. It’s time to adopt a more systematic, coherent approach to D&I. The authors offer five strategies for making more progress and creating a more representative, fair, and high-performing workforce.
Four actions transformational leaders can take
In a changed, post-pandemic environment, employees, customers, and investors have high expectations for the companies they work with. They expect companies to play a more prominent role in tackling systemic issues like climate change and social inequality, and they expect leaders to be effective, authentic, and compassionate. Leaders who want their organisations to meet this moment and succeed long-term need to move away from the status quo and change their approach to how they’ll lead the necessary transformations. The authors present four strategies for success.
How to reinvent your organisation during a crisis
Crises typically meet a ‘ragged end’, so it’s on leaders to make an informed judgment about when to shift from crisis management to reflection and preparation. While it’s tempting to want to stabilize your organisation at this point, this ongoing phase of the crisis presents an opportunity to take a fresh look at your company and take steps to make it more resilient. After determining that inflection point, leaders need to refresh themselves and their team, take a new look at the landscape, act on the learnings from the crisis, and deliver on promises made to employees. This is the perfect time to reinvent your organisation.