Tag: Leadership
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Just because you can, it doesn’t mean that you should
I was first given the keys to an organisation’s IT infrastructure in early 1997 at the tender age of 24. In previous roles I’d been the person tinkering away with a PC, trying to find ways of using computers to help my “proper job” – but this was my first experience of IT being the…
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How to avoid becoming a HiPPO
This isn’t diet advice. Not sure if I can talk with authority on that subject. No, this is some advice for you if you’ve become a HiPPO. You’re the founder, the CEO, the CTO, the General Manager, the Head of Sales. You’re a “senior decision-maker”, and the important decisions in your world are based on…
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People debt is like technical debt
Software development has the concept of “technical debt”: the cost of the shortcuts you have to take in the interests of time, money or available skill when you’re building a system. Essentially, your software will work for now, but it mightn’t scale to cope with new users, or be as easy to use as it…
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Reddit Place – closer to your organisation than you think?
Something wonderful happened a couple of weekends ago. From “When Pixels Collide“: For April Fool’s Day, Reddit launched a little experiment. It gave its users, who are all anonymous, a blank canvas called Place. The rules were simple. Each user could choose one pixel from 16 colors to place anywhere on the canvas. They could…
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Looking from the outside in
I came across a thought-provoking article from Lora Cecere on LinkedIn a few weeks ago. She discusses the downfall of Caterpillar’s CEO Doug Oberhelman, as a result of the dogged pursuit of an unsuccessful strategy, and the lack of adaptability of his company to changing market situations. Sales-driven and marketing-driven processes are internally focused on…
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It’s not about you – helping your team to focus on results
Many potentially high-performing teams still lose their way. Trust is high, fierce debate is present, commitment and accountability is well-developed – but when three, six, twelve months have passed, there’s always a reason why they haven’t delivered. The reasons may be understandable; the decisions justified – but given their time again, the team would have…
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Three Steps to Build Accountability
We’ve talked about trust, conflict and commitment. They’re vital ingredients of high-performing teams except… we haven’t actually done any work yet. Following a decision, once work is underway, teams can often be tripped up by a lack of accountability – an unwillingness to hold each other to account for delivery. Accountability can only be built on…
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Does your team have commitment issues?
The meetings have been endless – yet you’re going round in circles, and things you’d thought had been agreed keep being re-opened. Or maybe you thought you’d got your team to agree and sign their names in blood – but a few weeks later, there’s little sign of progress. You might be suffering from commitment…
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Is absence of conflict killing your team?
Conflict is healthy. Decisions taken from a set of alternatives are measurably better than plans which emerge from a single solution. Generating, developing and choosing between options is better when carried out by a group with diverse – but relevant – skills and experience. So if you have a strong, diverse team formed from capable…
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What do we mean by Trust? An example.
British politics is in turmoil. After the EU referendum, the Conservatives had a short and vicious internal fight, then appointed a new leader who has ruthlessly replaced most of the previous Cabinet. Theresa May now appears to be pursuing a very different agenda from the mandates delivered by both the 2015 General Election and the…