Karl Duncker’s experiment demonstrating Functional Fixedness, which I described last time, has a good deal of relevance for any company trying to develop a breakthrough product. Most of the time, a talented group of people fail to make headway not because of a lack of...
Curing functional fixedness (or, how to turn a desk into a magic castle). Small children are extraordinary inventive in using everyday objects to augment their imaginative play. A large box becomes a space capsule; a table, a blanket and a couple of chairs become an...
When leaders want to make their organisations more efficient in realising strategic goals, many of them resort to behaviourist, carrot-and-stick approaches. However, there’s a big problem: despite all the scientific-sounding talk of “measurable” KPIs and clearly...
In business coaching, I’m interested in cultivating the conditions for a new kind of attentiveness to what is happening in the here-and-now, noticing the elements we’d previously not seen because they form part of the taken-for-granted world: how we are relating to...
Over the last few weeks, we’ve taken a brief look at individual, team and systemic coaching. Today, I’d like to spend a little time on business coaching. Business coaching focuses on helping business owners or managers get the best out of their business and their...
Conventional wisdom holds that leaders who “walk the talk” – who demonstrate consistency and congruence in what they say, do and believe – set the best examples for others. There’s a lot of truth in this, but I’d like to make a plea for the opposite: talking the walk....
