BREATHE
Turning Heads or Turning Minds? Exploring influence and impact
Kim Kardashian knows how to turn heads. She is an astute businesswoman, who certainly knows how to get attention. She has extracted more than her 15 minutes of fame, and her influence extends far and wide. In contrast, Malala Yousafzai, [...]
Perfection’s Siren Song Drowns the Melody of Good
Or why a minimum viable product is so helpful ‘The perfect is the enemy of good,’ is mostly attributed to Voltaire, the 18th Century French philosopher, writer and master of wit. Others had variations on the concept, including Shakespeare and [...]
Still-Points in a Turning World
There are some management constants we can hold on to As an ‘elder’ in the business community and at ECI Partners, I have been asked to consider the big changes affecting business, and to consider the constants that have held [...]
Teams Versus Working Groups
32 Teams in the World Cup but Not a Single Working Group This year’s Women’s Soccer World Cup has six more teams than it did in 2019. It is a big deal to be hosting the event and women’s sport [...]
Rebuilding Organisational Culture
An Ancient Story with a Modern Meaning What the Phoenix can teach us about workplace renewal The Phoenix of ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology lived a life of about 500 years. It seemed to know when it was dying. It [...]
The Shape of Success
The Shape of Success You’ll be surprised how the shape of a table – and an agenda – changes a meeting. There is a mythical business story that seems to get passed down through business schools about a CEO who [...]
Mastering Complexity Without Losing Control
Mastering Complexity Without Losing Control There is an approach that works. As the Cold War was coming to an end the American military started using the acronym VUCA as shorthand for the more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that [...]
Having Skin in the Game Is a Winning Formula
View stakeholders as assets that improve project performance Like a faded dream, it was not so long ago that we used to talk about specialisation and the division of labour as key features of a modern economy. They were concepts [...]
Among the Chaos, there is Magic
Let’s think of organisational well-being as the physical, emotional, and social health of an organisation and that the well-being of an organisation is more than the sum of its individuals’ well-being. We know that organisations with better employee engagement, what [...]
Why Executives Should be Aware of Loneliness
We are all diminished by high levels of loneliness Australians have never been more connected. Australians have never been lonelier. Both statements are true. We might scratch our heads at what has happened with technology. Never have there been more [...]
How Wellbeing Works in the Workplace
The concept of wellbeing is now relatively mature. According to Google, the word has experienced a dramatic rise in popularity in English language texts. At the start of this century, it really took off. It appears to be still rising. [...]
When Smart and Healthy Balance
When Smart and Healthy Balance A state of equilibrium is achieved when rightward forces are balanced by leftward forces and upward forces are balanced by downward forces. It is sometimes talked about as a state of dynamic tension. Importantly, equilibrium [...]
Ted Lasso and AFC Richmond
have a lot to teach us about mindset
The trials and tribulations of the television show Ted Lasso have been compulsory viewing for all coaches, not just those who coach elite sportspeople. Back-to-back Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series don’t do the scriptwriters justice though, for there are [...]
When creativity meets
entrepreneurial thinking
It is said creativity is a way of looking at the world, a way of seeing that invites innovation, lateral ideas and a widening of the lens. It is also said it requires courage and motivation, risk and most likely failure. [...]
5 Megatrends Shaping the Future
Where will the world be in twenty years time? We get so caught up in the day-to-day that we often don’t give it much thought. For Professor Greg Whitwell, Dean of the University of Sydney Business School, it’s just part [...]
Does Executive Coaching help leaders with their challenges?
Executive coaching has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, as it has proven to be an effective way to help leaders overcome their challenges and achieve their goals. Executive coaches work with leaders to identify their strengths, weaknesses, [...]
Building Houses in Cambodia: Culture Change that Really Works
Building Houses in Cambodia: Culture Change that Really Works Over one hundred partners from Grant Thornton went to Cambodia to build 10 houses together. At the Executive Coaching International conference, Kim Schmidt, Director of Leadership and Culture, shared the incredible story [...]
Justin Di Lollo’s 5 Social Media Tips for Business Executives
Being competitive in an increasingly knowledge based economy means working at an entrepreneurial level. You have to stand out. At the Executive Coaching International Conference, Justin Di Lollo, a public figure in the Australian government relations and public-affairs consulting industry [...]
How Can I Truly Recharge?
Resilience is about debits and credits –my smart wife reminded me of this at dinner the other night! The more positive stuff going in (e.g. good sleep, nutritious food, water, purpose at work, quality family relationships, etc) helps us weather the times [...]
Time for a Personal Reboot?
For all their good points, computers can also drive us mad. They chug along fine and then one day they grind to a halt. You haven’t done anything different but code piled on top of code has somehow caused a [...]
The benefits of having an executive coach
Executive coaching has become an increasingly popular practice in the business world. An executive coach is a trained professional who helps executives and other high-level professionals improve their performance, develop their leadership skills, and achieve their personal and professional goals. [...]
Make stimulus spending a success
Government stimulus spending aims to minimise the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia by sustaining employment and spreading benefits across the economy. Infrastructure stimulus is likely to be a mix of individual large scale (and complex) infrastructure projects and programs [...]
Cognitive Diversity
Sometimes when I want to be controversial or stimulate a debate I ask executive teams, ‘why do we want diversity at work?’. I acknowledge it’s very ‘woke’ and politically correct but at this point you can sense a rising tension [...]
Revitalising your organisational mojo!
Imagine if you had to immediately stand down your entire organisation one day a week indefinitely – no ifs, buts or maybes. Would you feel the need to adjust your revenue targets? How about changing your project Gannt chart, Net [...]
Fight the urge to control your team.
The approach to business management continues to evolve looking for new and better ways to maintain competitiveness and deliver results. In today’s world the concepts of leaders and leadership appear prevalent amongst business consultants selling the secret to business success, [...]
Reboot your inner GPS to move out of short-termism and doubt.
Executives in 2021 nominate FOFO, over FOMO, as a constant and nagging fear. If the Fear Of Finding Out is leading you to strive for tighter control over yourself, your outputs, your team, or your work life, read on. Distraction, [...]
How Executive Coaching Develops Your Leadership Practice.
Executive coaching is a valuable resource that can help leaders hone their skills and achieve their full potential. A skilled coach can help executives navigate complex challenges, develop their leadership style, and build high-performing teams. In this article, we'll explore [...]
The Great Resignation – “Step away from instinct to look at new angles”
The Great Resignation is predicted to result in millions of Aussies leaving their jobs as people reassess their priorities. One thing we can all agree is that the workplace dynamic has changed, and we must plan for a different future. [...]
Give yourself a break this Christmas
Summer in Australia is the perfect time to take time out – you won’t be alone – so make the most of it! This year has been one of the most challenging many of us have ever had to face. [...]
New Year, New Sustainable Habits
We looked at winding down strategies at the end of last year but a new year means a new beginning. In this edition we suggest a simple '4 Step' approach to help make high performance more sustainable throughout the year. Start a ‘new [...]
Challenging conventional management theories to fit in today’s environment.
My PhD research studied the use of management systems (the processes and procedures used in managing an organisation) in highly complex business environments and the importance of these systems to successfully achieving business objectives. For the purposes of my research, [...]
What is Executive Coaching?
Executive leadership coaching is a process in which an experienced coach works with an executive to help them improve their leadership skills and achieve their personal and professional goals. The coach typically has extensive experience in the business world and [...]
We’re all in this together!
The autocratic, heroic leader of yesteryear has largely disappeared from Australian workplaces and in its place is a far more ‘distributed’ or shared leadership. A few organisations have even done away with formalised management structures and their executives genuinely share [...]
Listen to your longing – defining purpose.
Feedback is important, both to give and to get. Otherwise, how do you know if you have done something well, or could have done it even better? To encourage feedback, you need to reduce the fear and anxiety that commonly [...]
Make feedback just part of what you do…
Feedback is important, both to give and to get. Otherwise, how do you know if you have done something well, or could have done it even better? To encourage feedback, you need to reduce the fear and anxiety that commonly [...]
Make your meetings an engine of productivity!
Please tell me you are not asking me to read about running effective meetings! Well, if you keep reading that is exactly what I am writing about. A few salient facts to begin... 15% of your total employees’ collective time [...]
Who will you become now?
Ironically, I had to fly to the other side of the world to get my head around the state of our planet! In 2019 I attended a conference in Dublin, which included a workshop on climate change. I spent the [...]
