How to create a grit ecosystem that works for you
We all admire people who have grit, who keep on persisting and achieve great things. Many of the people who we recognise as fathers and mothers of innovation are often described as individuals who just believed in an idea and persisted. In essence, they had “grit”. So the question that everyone seems to be asking, […]
How to improve organisational fitness
Most leaders are eager to learn the secrets how to improve organisational performance, and there are countless books how to do this more or less painfully. Yet, the actual changes needed are not about culture but of structure; changes that challenge the common views and are therefore often discounted as actual solutions. I have lately […]
How to create spaces for breakthrough ideas
I have started re-reading Safi Bachall’s book on Loonshots that I blogged about last week (here) and also thinking more broadly about taking time to focus and reflect on idea development. This is particularly relevant as the last weeks have made me also reconsider whether I am taking enough time to create these spaces for […]
How to create the right conditions for crazy ideas
When I heard Safi Bahcall on Harvard Ideacast talking about his new book Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries, there was no turning back. A book about how to foster innovation and breakthrough ideas is simply a must have. A loonshot is an innovation that essentially […]
How to achieve unique coherence
Anyone in a leadership or managerial position knows how difficult it is to manage teams. You need to take into account the different skill sets and specific expertise, the personalities, and also different understandings of what needs to be prioritised and when. Yet, at the same time, we are increasingly told that we need to […]
How to immediately boost organisational performance
Countless books, podcasts and articles tackle this fundamental question: how do you boost an organisation’s performance and do it quickly and effectively. Google gives 7,430,000 results for “how to boost organisational performance”. We often look for different metrics across organisations, and make decisions how to run things more effectively in the hope of increasing performance. […]
How to guard your time (and be smart about it)
Do you ever get contacted by people outside your organisation asking you to donate your time and expertise for free but you end up feeling like they are doing you a favour? I do a lot of media engagement and communication in my current role because I am passionate about what I do, and I […]
Leadership and alter egos: making peer review more humane?
I have been attending this week sessions Manager as a Coach, a support program provided by the university for the staff in trying to get us to think more coach-like in how we manage people. My key takeaway messages are that power is something that is shared, that good leaders and managers focus on giving […]
Finding your voice
This week has marked the International Women’s Day and it seems timely again to reflect on some of the issues that are coming up in media. This year I was invited to join our university table at the Gold Coast Women of the Year Awards with some of our most influential women from Griffith University. […]
Be Magical: how to create true impact
In the last week I have kept reading Ben Rhodes The World as It is, given two radio interviews, and also discussed things like what counts as impact with the WonderWomen. Much of this has left me with questions as to what we count as impact, how do we see ourselves in bringing change or […]