Let’s unpack that crocodile-soothing intervention of President Roosevelt that I described last time and relate it back to organisational change. Roosevelt, of course, had no knowledge of the powerful role of the amygdala in human fear responses. However, as a polio...
Last time, we concluded with the core finding from the Haas Business School study: power can be beneficial for individual performances but can sabotage team performances. That’s quite a paradox for leaders, who want their teams to be as effective as possible as...
Late last year, a survey from global executive recruitment firm Odgers-Berndtson brought into public focus the disturbingly relentless and intense levels of stress to which C-suite managers working for FTSE 350 companies were routinely subjected. Tellingly, the report...
People often ask good questions; but that they ask questions is rather less important than how they ask them. Case Western Reserve University Professor David Cooperrider puts what is at stake when asking a question rather deftly: “We live in the world our questions...
MIT professor Edgar Schein suggests the open inquiry approach I concluded with last time is one of three modes of inquiry; he calls it ‘pure inquiry’). We move on from pure inquiry to what Schein calls ‘diagnostic inquiry’ - focusing in closely on specific elements of...
An orthodoxy has started to ossify around the concept of effective business coaching: it is all about helping small business owners streamline and optimise their strategies for business expansion. That is true as far as it goes; however, I think it leaves a lot out....