From winter.ink
Preserving a Little Magic in a Rational World
0 1
Where does myth end and deception begin? This is a perennial challenge for anyone navigating the Santa Clause tradition with children because it is essential to preserve the wonder of childhood while also fostering their nascent ability for critical thinking. Margaret Mead (1901–1978), one of...
on Mon, 10PM
From winter.ink
A Guide to Succession Planning in Organisations: Part 2
0 0
Imagine a thriving organisation where a dynamic CEO suddenly announces their retirement. The company scrambles to fill the void, hastily appointing a replacement from outside the organisation. Within months, cracks begin to show—staff morale dips, key projects falter, and the company’s culture...
on Dec 15
From winter.ink
A Guide to Succession Planning in Organisations, Part 1
0 0
Leadership can be described as the art of navigating complexity, balancing the demands of today with the uncertainties of tomorrow. Succession planning is a critical aspect of this art. At its core, it is about preparing an organisation to thrive beyond the tenure of its current leaders. Yet, it...
on Dec 8
From winter.ink
Empathy at Work: The Foundation of Compassionate Leadership
0 0
Organisational management is transforming in response to the complexities of modern workplaces, with empathy recognised not as a luxury but as a cornerstone of effective and ethical leadership. Far from undermining authority, empathy enhances it, enabling leaders to connect meaningfully with...
on Dec 1
From winter.ink
The Problem with Measurement in Organisations
0 0
Measurement has long been considered a cornerstone of effective management, largely on the say so of one guru or another. On more than one occasion, I have been complicit in the dark side of this process and quoted that famous quip attributed to management guru Peter Drucker (1909–2005): What...
on Nov 24
From winter.ink
The Speed of High(er) Trust Leaders: Part 2
0 0
In last week’s column, The Speed of High(er) Trust Leaders: Part1, I explored the considerable benefits that accrue from FranklinCovey’s Leading at the Speed of Trust training program. However, enthralment to any framework thinking it has the answers to ‘life, the universe, and everything’ is...
on Nov 17
From winter.ink
The Speed of High(er) Trust Leaders: Part1
0 0
If there is one certainty about the future, it is that the future is uncertain. This perhaps represents the key challenge all leaders face—getting people to unite to pursue a common goal in an uncertain world. This is true whether leaders are trying to galvanise a nation behind their vision or...
on Nov 10
From winter.ink
Narrow Band Comprehension: Understanding Myopia in Performance and Governance
0 0
Over the years I have written many performance reviews. Some have been formal appraisals of staff in a line-manager relationship, and some have been formal appraisals of organisations. Yet others have been the informal kind which happen countless times a day when in conversations with colleagues...
on Nov 3
From winter.ink
Innovation, a Driver of Success?
0 0
For most of my corporate career, innovation has been a central theme whenever an executive has got up on their hind legs and started talking about the company’s future. Yet for all the talk about innovation, I seldom hear anyone discuss the degree to which innovation and inventiveness can be...
on Oct 27
From winter.ink
The Limitations of AI in Formal Reasoning
0 0
Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in Large Language Models (LLMs), have demonstrated notable achievements across various domains, including natural language processing and mathematical reasoning. However, questions arise regarding the reliability of these models...
on Oct 20
From winter.ink
Leadership Gold or Development Mirage? ‘Gold of the Desert Kings’ Program
0 0
Gold of the Desert Kings: Overview ‘Gold of the Desert Kings‘ (GDK) is a widely used experiential leadership and team-building program designed to simulate real-world decision-making, strategy, and collaboration in a high-pressure environment. Participants are divided into teams tasked with...
on Oct 6
From winter.ink
Leadership in the Digital Age: Harnessing Technology for Business Success
0 0
Leadership, as a concept, has evolved considerably throughout history, influenced by shifts in political, economic, and social structures. Today, we stand at the cusp of a new era, where the digital revolution is shaping not only how we conduct business… Share...
on Sep 29
From winter.ink
Inclusive Leadership: Fostering Diversity and Equality in the Workplace
0 0
Inclusive leadership, a vital approach for cultivating diverse, equitable, and productive workplaces, offers more than the conventional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategies often promoted by HR departments. Rather than reducing leadership to metrics, inclusive leadership invites...
on Sep 22
From winter.ink
The Art of Decision-Making: How Effective Leaders Make Tough Choices
0 0
In leadership, few tasks are more consequential than making decisions — especially difficult ones. Decisions often come with uncertainty, incomplete information, and conflicting values. The best leaders manage these complexities by combining rational analysis, intuition, and moral judgment to...
on Sep 15
From winter.ink
Building High(er)-Performing Teams: A Leader’s Guide to Collaboration and Success
0 0
Everybody I speak with these days is building high-performing teams. I am too, at least that is what I am supposed to be doing. Of course, between what we all think we do and what we actually do often falls… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike this:Like Loading...
on Sep 8
From winter.ink
Navigating Change: The Role of Adaptive Leadership in Business Evolution
0 1
In last week’s article, Popper’s Theory of Falsification: A Pillar of Adaptive Leadership, I explored how falsification can help leaders to foster innovation, agility, and resilience in their organisations. This is achieved by evolving our understanding of the world at… Share...
on Sep 1
From winter.ink
Popper’s Theory of Falsification: A Pillar of Adaptive Leadership
0 0
Karl Popper, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, fundamentally challenged conventional views about scientific methodology. The classical positivist approach emphasised knowledge accumulation through observation and induction — drawing general conclusions from specific...
on Aug 25
From winter.ink
When a Strategy is Not a Strategy it’s a Platitude
0 1
In business the term ‘strategy’ is revered as the glue that unites organisational resources in a common goal. ‘Strategy’ evokes images of carefully crafted plans that unlock organisational success and growth. Yet not all that is labelled ‘strategy’ deserves the… Share...
on Aug 11
From winter.ink
Authoritarian, Authoritative, and Populist Leadership – A Short Comparative Analysis
0 0
The landscape of leadership styles is a complex terrain. Not least because the human condition is profoundly complex, and this means leading people is never a simple process. Despite this, there is no shortage of consultants who will sell the… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike...
on Aug 4
From winter.ink
Is It Time to Abandon 1-on-1s?
0 1
If you work in a typical organisation, chances are your “leaders” pride themselves on innovative thinking and are fully signed up to the principles of diversity. What always fascinates is that diverse or innovative thinking is usually only desired up… Share...
on Jul 28
From winter.ink
Not My Employee, Not My Team: A Custodian Approach to Management
0 0
One of the more common refrains I hear in business is managers saying, “my team … “. On the face of it the statement seems innocuous, almost throw away. Dig a little deeper and it seems natural that if someone… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike this:Like Loading...
on Jul 21
From winter.ink
0 0
If your working day is anything like mine, it is plagued with busyness. From meetings which should have been emails to emails which should have been a Teams message to Teams messages which should not have been sent — EVERYONE… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike this:Like Loading...
on Jul 14
From winter.ink
The Dangers of Leaders Who Don’t Know What They Don’t Know
0 0
There is an expression I often hear, usually when referring to a colleague who is rampaging through meetings like the proverbial HiPPO: “they don’t know what they don’t know”. On the face of it, this will seem an odd phrase… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike this:Like Loading...
on Jul 7
From winter.ink
The Growing Challenge of Terminating Underperforming Employees
0 0
Over the years I have been fortunate to work with some truly wonderful people. In addition to being consummate professionals, they have often had a great sense of humour — an essential ingredient to combat with the inevitable tedium of… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike...
on Jun 30
From winter.ink
“This Time It Will Be Different”: A Costly Delusion
0 0
In business it often feels like we work toward hope rather than great ideas. Put another way, the grass is always greener in the next project. I frequently observed this age old phenomenon when I worked in the book trade… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike this:Like Loading...
on Jun 2
From winter.ink
How to Think Better: A Shallow Dive into a Deep Topic
0 0
Edward O. Thorp — renowned mathematician and blackjack researcher — once pondered: “Where do the ideas come from? Mine come from sitting and thinking.” While seemingly self-evident, it conveys a fundamental truth — that deep thinking is the wellspring of… Share...
on May 26
From winter.ink
Better Questions Make for Better Decisions
0 0
The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote a marvellous autobiography, A Journey, which repays the reading as it contains a host of vignettes into the challenges faced by leaders. In the chapter ‘We Govern in Prose’, Blair offers some… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike...
on May 19
From winter.ink
Look!, there is a Tiger in that Grass
0 0
As ‘An’ Historian I am keenly aware that the average ‘modern’ practitioner of historiography considers it shocking or ‘paternalistic’ to think of lessons or morals emerging from history. Yet scholarship teaches, in so far as the study of the past… Share...
on May 12
From winter.ink
0 0
I will confess to enjoying work a little more these days. No, this is not because my Pointy-haired Boss has become more of a pleasure to work for, nor because the organisation has slipped its earthly bonds and become a… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike this:Like Loading...
on May 5
From winter.ink
Fixed and Growth, Twin Aspects of our Mindset
0 0
If you have had a mortgage in recent years, the sweetest thing is to be on a fixed rate. This is because while you know the honeymoon will eventually end, you have been able to sit back at BBQs while… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike this:Like Loading...
on Apr 28
From winter.ink
Day By Day Nothing Seems to Change
0 0
If you are anything like me, then you love a good story. Be it books, movies, or a tale from a stranger in the pub, stories invigorate and enrich our lives. The trouble with stories, is that they compress time.… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike this:Like Loading...
on Apr 21
From winter.ink
The Perils of Overconfidence and Benefits of Rational Thinking
0 0
Humans, as a rule, are bad at estimating and worse at predicting. This is why films such as The Big Short, which depict real life predictions that come true, are notable as exceptions that prove the rule — we are… Share this:LinkedInMastodonXFacebookRedditEmailLike this:Like Loading...
on Apr 14
From winter.ink
Disconnected Expectations: Why Managers and Employees Struggle to Agree
0 0
As both a line-manager and organisational philosopher, sadly the latter is not an official title much less a paid role, I am engaged in constant discussions about employee rights, norms, and perks. These conversations are nothing new. Since written records… Share...
on Apr 7
From winter.ink
Being Right A Lot: An Inputs Approach
0 1
A friend of mine often remarks, "I'm not always right, but I'm never wrong." This in a sense sums up the problem with the prevailing view about what 'being right' means. It preferences outcomes over inputs.
on Mar 30
From winter.ink
Why Positioning Eats Predicting For Breakfast
0 0
In life as in strategic planning, we walk a fine line between making a balance of probability call about what is likely to happen and acting as though we can predict the future. This is a subject upon which I…
on Mar 24
From winter.ink
Observe, Orientate, Decide and Act
0 0
During the 1970s, renowned fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd came to the conclusion that the attrition-firepower model of conflict was flawed. In short, the power relationship between two opposing forces had largely ceased to matter. In its place…
on Mar 17
From winter.ink
Governance: Achieving a Healthy Organisational Culture
0 0
Responsibility for the governance of organisational culture needs to be extended beyond the Board and ELT to middle and lower management so that they can collectively and individually model desired characteristics.
on Mar 4
From winter.ink
Governance: The Foundation for Strategy and Planning
0 0
The essence of governance lies in the distribution of responsibilities and rights among stakeholders, impacting all organisational affairs — including decision-making procedures and rules. Through historical and contemporary perspectives, corporate governance has evolved to encompass broader...
on Mar 1
From winter.ink
0 0
Experience, not computational ability, is predictive of susceptibility to the sunk cost fallacy. Reframing negativity as pragmatism and using organisational experience are key to avoiding sunk cost traps. Hiring for experience and strategic planning are essential in cutting losses and avoiding...
on Feb 18
From winter.ink
0 0
Unlike the neat conclusions found in many of the articles already produced on the topic, or as *common sense* would suggest, it is not so simple as 'just cut your losses'. Therefore, the question remains: when a line manager or Board has a program where the costs are outweighing the benefits,...
on Feb 10
From winter.ink
0 0
You can compare these techniques in meetings with people who, ironically, are not trying to sabotage the company but think their approach a good way to run effective meetings.
on Feb 5
From winter.ink
A Crisp Document and Messy Meeting
0 0
In passing off the thinking of others as our own, we fail to invoke the discipline essential in critical thinking. The most effective antidote to this is a crisp document, 'written with such clarity that it's like angels singing from on high', followed by a messy meeting in which people can...
on Jan 23
From winter.ink
0 0
Organisations that are above average in their track record of developing leader-managers put an emphasis on creating challenging opportunities, not just for aspiring talent but for incumbent Line Managers who can too easily become stale.
on Jan 22
From winter.ink
Managing Control and Leading Motivation
0 0
By leveraging the management tool of control to harness the energy released by the leadership tool of motivation, the informal leadership networks that arise can handle the greater demands that result from the organisational change process.
on Jan 6
From winter.ink
Aligning And Organising, It’s All About People
0 0
When alignment and planning are conjoined, the process releases untapped potential. This is because a leader-manager is energising people by unlocking feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. An approach that ultimately leads to greater wellness.
on Dec 16, 2023
From winter.ink
Strategic Direction Versus Initiative Planning
0 0
Competent planning is a vital reality check on exuberant strategy, and sound strategy gives planning the direction to bring about change.
on Dec 9, 2023
From winter.ink
Leading Change and Managing Complexity
0 0
When Line Managers lack the hard skills of process design and implementation, the capacity to initiate changes in procedure, or the ability to write sound policy, and instead try to *lead* their team to success by hiring or co-opting other managers in the business to solve their problems, an...
on Dec 3, 2023
From winter.ink
The Ties of Informal Leadership
0 0
Structural and qualitative criteria can be applied in analysing employee interactions to answer: Are the people in my team effective informal leaders or merely highly social people building their brand?
on Nov 26, 2023
From winter.ink
The Boundaries of Informal Leadership
0 0
Strengthened organisational hierarchies can be a path out of the mire of evermore specialised roles and excessively collaborative work environments. However, even with an effective and open hierarchy in place, informal leadership is critical to organisational efficiency and success.
on Nov 19, 2023
From winter.ink
0 0
In science, a paradigm is a model or pattern — a typical instance or exemplar. But in rhetoric, my chosen field, it is an example or guide as to how one should behave.
on Oct 15, 2023