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…
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…
“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…
Some teams feel uncomfortable making important decisions. The team members rely on the wisdom of the manager to direct them, their goals, and their targets. They wait to be told what to do and don’t plan their approach to tasks that need to be accomplished. The resultant dysfunctionality leads to necessary micro-management from the leader…
“If dandelions were rare and fragile, people would knock themselves out to pay $14.95 a plant, raise them by hand in greenhouses, and form dandelion societies and all that. But they are everywhere and don’t need us and kind of do what they please. So, we call them weeds and murder them at every opportunity”…
“Income and wealth may impress your friends and increase your vocabulary, but having a servant attitude and compassion for others will cause people to take notice and give purpose to your life” (Germany Kent) The company was ailing. It wasn’t that their chicken was bad or tasteless – indeed, their range of products was good….
“We’re all fragile threads, but what a tapestry we make” (Jerry Ellis) Mahatma Gandhi suggested that one of the greatest challenges of our day is finding unity amongst diversity. Unity implies oneness, but oneness does not necessarily mean sameness. In other words, we may all be different, unique individuals, but through unity of purpose we…
I love mental games – solving problems that require the exercise of logic and the ability to get into the mind of the problem’s creator (understanding the sometimes-obscure reasoning that underlies all the issues related to finding a solution). Crosswords, Sudoku, and the Rubik’s Cube, amongst many others, require one’s mental freedom to be able…
“Passion is contagious – so is not having it” (Tim McClure) Top leaders care about the world around them. Their sense of “why” the business exists trumps any other issue – the business purpose (why we exist) becomes all-consuming and drives passion and behaviour. This burning belief is different to “making a profit” – making…
“I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone” (Robin Williams, 1951-2014) A UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) study by Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman discovered that the part…
“A clear conscience is a sure sign of a bad memory” (Mark Twain) Conscience is a cognitive process that engenders emotional and rational associations and responses that relate to a person’s moral philosophy or value system. In general terms, conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a person behaves in contradiction…
