These are the common factors that can activate a reward or threat response in human beings – status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness. A good model
Category: Management
Farewell video for Liz – Stay by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons
We pulled together a farewell video for Liz. Kudos to Hayden L for the production work.
Daniel Goleman’s 12 emotional intelligence traits
The best leaders exercise emotional intelligence. The ‘father’ of emotional intelligence, Daniel Goleman, identifies these 12 traits of the best leaders: Emotional self-awareness: knowing your strengths and limitations Emotional self-control: calmness under pressure and ability to recover quickly from upsets Adaptability: agility in the face of change and uncertainty Achievement orientation: desire to strive for…
Australia Quiz via MS Teams to keep up morale during COVID-19
I ran an Australia quiz via MS Teams this week. A bit of a morale booster for people working from home due to COVID-19. Here are the slides:
The Crazy Ones – The Leadership vs Management Debate
I like to show the following video, The Crazy Ones, when discussing the distinction between leadership and management. It’s quite an inspiring video, even though I am no Apple fanboy… The people depicted in the video were all ‘leaders’, pioneers in their chosen fields – but what makes them so? Why are they special? Why are…
The Marshmallow Challenge
I’m a big fan of the internationally-recognised Marshmallow Challenge team building activity and regularly use it in my training sessions. I think it’s a great tool for ‘breaking the ice’, exploring team dynamics, and emphasising the value of ‘out of the square’ design thinking and iterative development. What is the Marshmallow Challenge? In eighteen minutes, teams of four must build the tallest…
How ‘agile’ is your organisation?
‘Agile’ is a managerial buzzword that you’ve no doubt heard bandied around in the modern workplace (right up there with my personal favourite: ‘synergy’). You might be aware that ‘agile’ is a formal project management methodology associated with software development, but the fundamental thinking behind that methodology can be applied more broadly to organisations as a whole….
An Essay on Cognitive Dissonance and Organisational Culture
I thought I’d publish an amended version of a recent essay that I submitted for my MBA. This essay was written for ‘Managing Contemporary Organisations’ and covers two scholarly themes: Edgar Schein’s model of organisational culture; and Leon Festinger’s concept of ‘cognitive dissonance’, the troubled psychological state that a person finds themselves in when they…
The Fox, the Chicken and the Corn
This is a nice little icebreaker that can be used for small teams – you’ve probably encountered this problem before… You’ve stumbled across a river. In your possession is a hungry fox, a hungry chicken, and a sack of corn. There is a rowboat moored on the river bank, and it can only carry yourself and one…
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept
I first ‘met’ Lieutenant General David Morrison in Townsville in 1998. When I say ‘met’, it was more a case of ‘quivered in front of’. Morrison is one scary individual. I was a young Lieutenant working as the Assistant Adjutant at the 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (or 1RAR, as it is known) and…
A digital strategy and operations model
If your business is serious about digital, then it’s important to invest some real time and effort developing a ‘digital strategy’. Unfortunately many businesses believe that building a website and opening a Facebook Page constitutes a ‘strategy’, but it’s a little more involved than that; at least it is if you want to derive as much benefit from…
RIP the annual staff performance review?
I was interested to read yesterday that consulting firm Deloitte has decided to scrap its bi-annual staff performance review in Australia in favour of real-time assessments. This is all part of a global initiative at Deloitte to reinvent its performance management system. Deloitte Australia’s head of people and performance Alec Bashinsky told SmartCompany that the traditional staff performance…