‘Force-multiplication’ is a term used in military science and warfare and refers to an attribute or a combination of attributes that dramatically increases (hence multiplies) the effectiveness of an item or group, giving the troops the ability to accomplish greater things than without it. The expected size increase required to have the same effectiveness without…
I am surprised at how many people hate work. Wherever I go, I come across hundreds of people who prefer the duvet rather than the desk, the coffee station rather than the computer and “five to four” rather than “five to eight”. Work is an ordeal for them – a necessity to be endured, but…
Living a meaningful and fulfilled life is not so easy. The challenges of life hit like the waves of the ocean as one difficulty after another rolls in. Amidst such ongoing bombardment, it seems to be ever more challenging to pause long enough to reflect on daily choices and what we want to do with…
“The tragic truth is that the language of ‘victimisation’ is the true victimiser – a great crippler of young minds and spirits. To teach young people that their lives are governed – not by their own actions, but by socioeconomic forces or government budgets or other mysterious and fiendish forces beyond their control – is…
Periodically, as managers, we are faced with employee non-conformance operationally (for example: not observing safety rules, missing deadlines, negligence, inaccuracies, etc.) or in terms of behaviour (for example: arriving late repetitively, not behaving according to the company values, gossiping, treating a client with indifference, etc.). These performance issues need to be addressed, even if difficult…
I love art – sketching, drawing or painting. I don’t spend enough time practising, but when I get a moment to relax, I retrieve the pad, eraser, pencil and the watercolours. I find a quiet spot, shake off the accumulated stress from the week’s events and begin planning the next piece. On a particular Sunday…
I have a whistle that has four notes, obtained in Chattanooga in the United States of America. There is nothing particularly special about these four different notes and they are almost weak sounding, even when you blow on them individually with some force. When you blow them together, however, they produce the sound of the…
David Thomas was born in 1932 to an unmarried mother that he never got to know – he was given up for adoption at 6 weeks old to Rex and Auleva Thomas. Auleva died when Dave was just 5 years old, and he moved with his father (a distant man) around the United States of…
“Real communication happens when we feel safe” (Ken Blanchard – The Heart of a Leader) Not making time to listen with your heart is a huge barrier to effective communication. To achieve understanding and ultimately oneness, time needs to be invested in any relationship to enable empathic listening. Empathic people learn to see things through…
Leaders won’t get better results organisationally by focusing on the faults or poor behaviour of their employees. Leaders would be more effective by focusing their efforts internally, that is, working on their own self-awareness, self-deception, self-betrayal, blind spots and inadequate care. Blaming others for a lack of results suggests that the problem is “out there”…
To reach targets, drive a strategy with excellence and exceed shareholder demands, organisations need top talent. Gone are the days when employees could just follow process and be reasonably productive for their allotted eight hours – the competition is now too fierce. In the ever-changing and somewhat complex environment of a globalised economy, businesses are…
There are numerous stories of those who had to overcome difficulty, were resilient and triumphed, even in the face of criticism or extreme hardship – Ignace Paderewski, the great Polish pianist, was told by his first piano teacher that his hands were too small to master the keyboard; Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper…
Having the opportunity of consulting and working within a number of industry sectors and various companies in many parts of the world, I am continually intrigued by the “motivation questions” that are so often asked – how can we motivate our staff well to achieve better productivity? How do we get our staff to take…
They know their customers. They know what their customers want. They know how to present their products so that their customers will purchase from them. They know the ideal pricing for their products so that they clear their goods daily. ‘Fresh’, ‘freshly cooked’ and ‘relevant’ are the maxims by which they operate. These are the…
There’s a wonderful sign on one of the lengthy dirt roads in South Africa which reads: “Choose your rut carefully as you will be in it for the next one hundred kilometres”! “Ruts” are not particular to gravel roads, however, but seem to be part of the regular human experience as people get stuck in…
Colin Hall, friend and former colleague, was born during the Second World War into a reasonably affluent white South African family. His schooling during those Apartheid years meant that he got the best education, but with it, also heavy doses of superiority and competition. He soon discovered that life was his for the grasping and…
Most leaders (and in fact, most people) have the inability to be honest with themselves about their inadequacies; brutally honest, with growth as their goal. This inability leads to self-deception and justification. The problem is always ‘out there’, not internal. The fault lies with others, their attitude, their laziness, their incompetence. These leaders never seem…
“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him” (Booker T Washington) Revenge is the predominate choice of response in our world today. We see this in the multitude of wars and discrepancies all over the planet. It’s characterised in today’s litigious societies and even experienced in religious…
International sport is fascinating, especially to note the trends, changes in approach, and changes to the rules of whichever game is being played, and the dominance of certain countries in the respective sport expressions that are national favourites. In soccer, Brazil, France, England, Italy, Germany, and Spain have all had their moments. With cricket, Australia…
Over the past three decades, Free To Grow, a consulting company based in South Africa, has created rich, stimulating and meaningful learning experiences for well over 1 500 clients and has trained almost 150 000 people during this time. Through many years of experimentation and research in the field of adult learning, Free To Grow has developed…
I have travelled on but a few of the great and sometimes famous rivers of our world – the Zambezi (near the Victoria Falls) and the Orange Rivers in Africa, the Colorado and Mississippi in the USA and the Thames in the UK. I still need to get to the Amazon, Nile, Volga, Danube, Yangtze…
