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...
Tag: team work
Egos and collaboration: Building Effective Teams, Part Three
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...
Emotion – the ‘elephant in the room’ in team conflict (Part 1)
Where does team conflict come from? One of the answers, of course, seems obvious once you name it: emotion. Aggressive emotion to be precise. Emotion can overheat – it’s volatile stuff – and it makes much better sense to learn to become aware of its influence, both in...
The toxic effects of high-pressure cultures (Part One)
Surviving in competitive markets is a question of building high-pressure cultures focussed on bottom line results. Encouraging people to be cut throat and take-no-prisoners to ensure financial success. Right? As you might expect from the way I phrased it, this is...
Building trust in organisations
Engagement strategies remain important for improving profitability; but engagement without building trust is an empty shell. High profile public scandals over the last few years – phone hacking by journalists, reckless actions by banks and misbehaviour by individual...
A short introduction to systemic coaching (Part one)
I’d like to spend a little time discussing a relatively new development in coaching: systemic coaching. However, before doing so, let’s take a little detour into the world of sport. Most people in the business world are at least intuitively aware that coaching had its...






