Are your decisions creating unintended consequences?

Are your decisions creating unintended consequences?  If they are you may need to review how much you need to control the decision-making process in your business.  Are you the only one who really makes decisions or do you seek to collaborate?

Is fear stealing your peoples’ resourcefulness?

Fear can be useful - it keeps us safe when there is real physical danger, but it can also be very detrimental because it can steal our resourcefulness just when we need it most.  How is your behaviour as a leader and manager impacting on the resourcefulness your people? 

The danger of certainty in an uncertain world

Is your business in danger of you or your team being so certain that the truth gets rejected?  We are entering a world of post-truth in politics – the truth no longer appears to matter and the people with the most certainty in their position seem to win.

The 4 critical shifts for success in the 21st Century

These days most leaders struggle to find time to focus; time to think things through.  The background noise of news outlets combined with the relentless production of social media is creating a chronic sense of overwhelm and then there is the daily tsunami of email.

Understanding the Flip Side of Communication

There is a flip side to your communication that is often below your conscious awareness.  By raising awareness of your preferences you can become even more effective.  Most politicians are unbalanced but not in the way you may think. They often answer questions and speak in a manner that makes it difficult to understand what they actually mean.  Their strong desire to be diplomatic means that all too often they say lots of vague and ambiguous words that leave you none the wiser.  At the opposite end of the scale you get the mavericks like Donald Trump who blurt out very provocative and highly offensive statements that send many people into a spin of incredulity, which means they instantly reject what he is saying.    

What is your level of Strategic Acumen?

Reality and strategic acumen went out the window during the referendum campaigns for the UK to leave or remain in the EU. Both camps were very polarised between people who seemed to be blindly optimistic about the opportunities of going it alone and others who had severe scepticism about the economic impact of having to renegotiate hundreds of trade and security agreements. How well are you balancing your optimism and scepticism about your current situation?

Tips for making wiser decisions

It was fascinating to observe the way the debates in the EU referendum unfolded and how people were making decisions about which way to vote. In the end it was almost impossible to differentiate fact from fiction on both sides.  Sadly (in my opinion) that meant that many people voted purely on emotion and not just any emotion, but deep feelings that had been triggered by primary threats to survival.