One of my most loved music genre’s is ‘classical’ – not only compositions from the so-called ‘greats’ (Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, etc.), but also the lesser-known composers that have influenced music style in the 20th Century. This morning, it was Ravel’s turn to serenade me. Joseph Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), perhaps one of the greatest of the…
“There are more things to do than we ever shall get done; there are more books to read than we can ever look at; there are more avenues to enjoyment than we ever shall find time to travel. Life appeals to us from innumerable directions, crying, ‘Attend to me here!’ In consequence, we litter up…
“If you are a good leader, people will respect and admire you. If you are a great leader, people will respect and admire themselves” (Unknown) Leaders that resonate with their subordinates with respect to the very essence of being human matters more than anything else along the journey into the future. The old model of…
“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit” (Albert Schweitzer) Very few people seem to have “found their voice”. By this I mean: knowing and living…
When my son was in his early teenage years, he didn’t really manage to keep his room clean, especially when it came to dirty washing which just formed a pile of clothes in the middle of the floor. No amount of “laying down the law” saw any improvement – the pile just grew daily, so…
“Occasionally the world witnesses a heroic feat or discovers a person with rare talent…but most people know there is another type of greatness that tends to be more quiet by nature, one that generally escapes the headlines. Yet, it is a greatness that, in my opinion, is deserving of higher honour, even more respect. I…
We need to be aware as a manager, having adopted and implemented a 21st Century approach of truly engaging our employees with authenticity and care, that there might be one or two employees who pull the ring out of things and attempt to get as much out of the manager as possible. These specific employees,…
“The skill of neutrality is a powerful strength if you want to increase your influence” (JoAnn Corley-Schwarzkopf) I sometimes hear the following comments from employees in different organisations: “I can’t speak to my boss as he is biased; managers here don’t really listen to ideas; the concept of ‘fairness’ doesn’t exist in my organisation; my…
In consulting with organisations, I sometimes hear the following statements by employees of their respective managers: “One of my colleagues always underperforms, putting pressure on the whole team, but my boss never addresses the issue” “My boss always tells us that there is nothing he can do about a particular decision as it comes from…
Removing clutter is liberating – getting rid of the unnecessary and creating space to think and focus on the truly important. Yes, removing junk takes time, but it does eventually pay dividends with clean desks, open spaces and a more conducive living or working environment. Creeping clutter is more difficult to tackle – this type…
I wish that I still had 20/20 vision, but many years have slipped by and the time is coming for reading glasses – although reasonably inexpensive, they have the profound ability of bringing text back into focus again and I no longer need to squint to see that which is before me. In geometrical optics,…
“It’s depressing to think that company culture is still seen as a ‘soft’ area of corporate life. Culture is everything: it dictates both the behaviour of those in leadership and the wider employee base” (Eugenio Pirri – Chief People & Culture Officer at the Dorchester Collection) In recent study results from Mercer, there is confirmation…
