A rabbit’s owners wanted it to help them. So they convinced the rabbit to copy how they buy food from the local supermarket. It did well. It could put items in the trolley, go to the checkout, pay, and even carry them home. Sadly the rabbit wasn’t much help to…
80. Are you a survivor?
The world is a tough place. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we all try hard to survive – physically and emotionally. If you’re not conscious of staying alive, you’re privileged. Or maybe naïve. Survival as a leader might not involve physical safety but does include success, or maintaining…
79. The Agile contradiction
We all want to be Agile. Why not? Who doesn’t want to be flexible, fast & responsive? If you value flexibility & speed, why not apply it to everything? Create a new silver bullet and give it a name. Call it “Agile”. The trouble is that righteous adjectives can become…
78. The choice to Lead.
It’s true that citizens don’t choose royalty but they do choose their elected politicians. The twist comes on the question of choice. A modern monarch doesn’t choose to lead us any more than we choose them, while elected leaders choose themselves! All leaders who are selected or elected make an…
77. Did you ever make a mistake?
Did you ever do something that you regretted later? Made a mistake that still haunts you? Of course you did. We all make mistakes. The mistakes we know about are important , but they’re not dangerous. The dangerous mistakes are the ones we don’t know we made. Errors aren’t linear,…
76. The Menu is not the Meal
A good plan can be a wonderful thing. A story well told with a call to action. Lots of charts showing results, and diagrams showing how they’ll be achieved. Enough details to ensure integrity. Clear objectives. Is it enough? A team’s plan is like a menu for a meal. The…
75. Do you use Suggestion Boxes?
I hate suggestion boxes. Not just the old school physical ones. They don’t work, and they actually do a lot of damage. They’re meant to encourage ideas by enabling ideas to be collected, maybe anonymously. In practice they end in frustration & enforce hierarchy, actually killing ideas. In most organizations…
74. Is your mind closed?
There’s a fine line between success and failure. Usually a series of small mistakes. If success comes from many small improvements, so too failure comes from many small mistakes. Reverse Kaizen is a thing… We all make mistakes. So preventing mistakes isn’t the answer to preventing a larger failure. Avoiding…
73. Do you go with the Flow?
You can’t change everything. Nor would you wish to. Vision and objectives are critical to success but not every objective needs to be about change. The things that are already built are important too. The foundations we stand on. The water we swim in. Not just in a static sense,…
72. Do you promote incompetence?
There’s a paradox in open democracies. They can seem shambolic or even weak when they exercise their greatest strength. That strength is accountability and consequences for poor behavior or performance. Autocracies can seem stable and strong simply because their leaders aren’t held to account. For behavior or performance. A key…