Practicing Dialogue
I was recently listening to a great podcast called Practical Wisdom for Leaders, presented by Scott J. Allen. He was in conversation with Theo Dawson, and they were talking about how leaders can develop skills. Theo has a beautiful definition of skills: “A skill is essentially something you can practice.” This resonates deeply with my […]
Feeling Heard
How many conversations have you had like this? Person A: “I think we should do X, and here are ten thousand reasons (that I’m right).”Person B: “Oh, I think we should do Y, and here are ten thousand reasons (that I’m right).”Person A: “Okay, but I still think we should do X, and here are […]
Straight Talk
In the autumn of 2008, there was a global financial crisis. At that time, I was working in the Engineering Management team of a global first-tier automotive company. We developed and manufactured roof systems for many of the major car companies around the world. Almost overnight, our business went from booming to crisis. Production orders […]
Brilliant Meetings
When is the last time that you left a meeting and felt, really FELT that was a BRILLIANT meeting? It had been brilliantly designed, everybody there knew what was expected of them, everybody who was needed was there (and on time,) everybody was prepared, the agenda points were clear and aligned to the top priorities, […]
Noticing
What are you noticing? I’ve heard this question a couple of times in the last few weeks, and I’m noticing that it may well be one of the most powerful and important questions… For me, for teams, for us all. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you may be noticing that the leaves are […]
The Gift of Connecting
Connection is a basic human need, closely linked to our sense of belonging. There’s plenty of research showing that living without connection isn’t just unpleasant — it’s damaging. Studies in psychology and neuroscience show that isolation affects our brain and body chemistry (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Cacioppo, 2008), and that loneliness can shorten our lifespan […]
Perfomance
Many teams and organizations that we work with are very successful and highly focused on performance, tasks, and objectives — they deliver! However, they can become so successful that they grow almost blind to the need to improve how they work together as a team, and to the importance of learning and developing as individuals. […]
Awareness
It is widely recognized that ‘awareness’ is the first step towards ‘change’.But in our hyperactive, always-on-the-move corporate world, where ‘noise’ is all around, how can we create ‘awareness’? Well, maybe the first step is a bit counterintuitive… it’s to slow down and take some time to reflect. Take a moment to ask these questions: • […]
Connecting Everywhere
When your mission is “Helping Teams Everywhere to Grow the Human Skills of Collaboration,” then we could imagine that we need to do lots of travelling. After all, in the world of team coaching and team development, we often say we need to “meet the team where they are,” and so we’d better travel over […]
Creative Collaborations
In 2003, Elsa and I got married in Paris. We had lots of family and friends who came to the town hall for the ceremony and to our party on the outskirts of the city. We have so many memories from the day, and one of my favourite moments was receiving an Applause Machine as […]