In many organisations the lack of digital skills is seen as an issue of staff capability when in reality the lack of digital skills is often a leadership issue. Most of my conversations with executives about digital skills, or perhaps more precisely the lack of digital skills, go something like this (note this is deliberately over simplified and just a […]
This was the question that the Thriving Through Digital group considered in a recent discussion. It was an interesting and wide ranging discussion touching on issues such as the role of experience in a changing environment, silo thinking from leaders that make organisational change difficult, an inability to change or worse, active protection of the past, which have provided incumbent […]
There we were halfway through the workshop with the IT leadership team and our attention shifted to the team’s project delivery performance. The insight from the executive was very clear. They saw the IT team as the department of no! It didn’t matter how good an idea it was IT would find a way to make sure it didn’t get done. […]
I have spent a large part of my career leading / managing teams. I have had my moments of success and my moments of failure as a leader. I look back at some of the things I have done in the name of leadership and cringe at my crassness and stupidity. In a recent blog on persistent problems I noted […]
I had arrived early and took up a seat in a quiet corner of the cafe. I was here for my first coaching session with Roseanne. Roseanne was identified early as a high potential leader within a major corporate IT team. Recently, however, her CIO had noticed a disturbing trend in her performance. Roseanne and her team were missing deadlines […]
Over the past year or so I have been reading and thinking a lot about leadership. The catalyst for this came from a number of sources. Firstly our company invests a lot of money on performing employee engagement surveys. My team’s level of engagement was terrible and it seems that no matter what I did it would not improve. Secondly […]
Richard Bach said “We teach best what we most need to learn.” and it is within the spirit of “what I most need to learn” that I write this column. If you have spent any time with me you will know that I am a big fan of the work of Stephen Covey. One of Covey’s teachings is that the […]
About two years ago I co-founded the Life Game Project (LGP). LGP is focused on using immersive on-line games to support learning the skills required to be successful in life. For learning to occur two things need to be present for the learner: Content, there is something to learn, and Engagement, they want to learn Traditional education does a great job of […]
If you look through history for examples of great leaders they all have 1 thing in common. They have achieved amazing results. I cannot find one person who has achieved nothing or little who is considered a great leader. Based on this it seems reasonable to assume that the ultimate measure of leadership is the results that are achieved. Maybe […]
Are you focused and calm or have you got too many things going on and rushing around? Do you come away from meetings with your leaders clear on what’s needed and focused – or confused and frustrated? In the early 1990s I spent about two years in Atlanta on transfer. During my time there I reported on projects to two […]
If you look through history for examples of great leaders they all have 1 thing in common. They have achieved amazing results. I cannot find one person who has achieved nothing or little who is considered a great leader. Based on this it seems reasonable to assume that the ultimate measure of leadership is the results that are achieved. Maybe […]
It’s 8.50 am and you are working on the IT help desk. You receive a panicked call from the Chief Executive’s PA. There is an executive meeting due to start in 10 minutes and she has a number of documents that she needs to print for the meeting. The problem is that the printer is not working! What do you […]
During the last Christmas holidays our family choose to tour the South Island. So we packed up the family, including the dog, and set off from Auckland for the South Island. It started with a trip to Granny’s, in Tapanui for Christmas and ended at Grandma’s in Nelson for a classic Kiwi summer holiday. It was an amazing trip with […]