It is not surprising that life altering and, in some cases life threatening, events such as the pandemic, global inflation and the new war in Europe are having profound effects on people in and out of work. What is surprising is the size of the gap in the understanding of these effects on well-being between […]

In a recent Raconteur article Sam Forsdick quotes Slack’s SVP Brian Elliot’s discourse on the post-pandemic competition to attract and retain talented people. Elliot suggests that the Zeitgeist of leaders who try to control the working environment for their people has passed and, effectively, there has been an enforced democratisation of what constitutes good working […]

Companies, whether in very competitive markets or in a leadership position in a new market, want to achieve operational excellence. The Institute for Operational Excellence defines it as “Each and every employee can see the flow of value to the customer, and fix that flow before it breaks down.” Implicit in this definition is the […]

We are in an inflationary period and it’s not surprising to see the economy heading for a recession. Higher prices and more cautious customers, coupled with an increasingly competitive market, makes the job of selling much more challenging. And as the world continues to change at a fast pace, it is critical for any business […]

The following illuminating extract is from a Chief Executive interview with Marc Benioff, founder and co-CEO of the behemoth SaaS firm, Salesforce, as he discusses its stellar success. He says a lot about business and organisational culture, but his answers also say a lot about organisational sensemaking and leadership. “You’re one of the few people […]

A sensemaking analysis (what’s the story here?) of Elon Musk’s approach to decision-making is marginalised to the hunger for a juicy Twitter feed, and yet it reveals an insight into the human condition that is often cloaked by the perceived need for conformity. ‘We have recently been granted a glimpse behind the curtain of how […]

Most of us will know people who are likeable and often will view them more favourably than the people we know who are less easy to get along with. This human tendency to favour people who are likeable extends to workplace situations such as recruitment. As Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, CIO at ManpowerGroup, points out in his […]

‘The world of employment has rarely seen such tumult over such a short period. The pandemic has upended the job market and forced employers to adopt practices that many would have dismissed out of hand before 2020 – particularly remote working.’ As the pandemic emerged, I was writing: ‘As operational effectiveness is reduced by the […]

‘Hiring a COO is an opportunity to challenge organisational inertia: to think differently and creatively about processes and systems and to ask important questions about why things are done a certain way’. This is a quotation taken from a recent article in the The Times Raconteur, ‘What will the COO of the future look like?’ […]