Leadership is sexy, management is boring. Yet how many of us have followed plausible and inspiring leaders who it turns out couldn’t manage their way out of a paper bag and in the end, if we follow them at all, it is only out of sheer curiosity. Paradoxically, it is management, often regarded as a…
Informal networks of connection and control have always existed, but often only vaguely understood within tribal pecking orders, neat corporate hierarchies, and military chains of command. For networks to emerge as a new paradigm it needed a language of its own. A language that has been provided by the internet and social media. The question…
I can’t take the credit for this one and I’m not even sure who can. I found it recently on an untitled word document, among a pile of papers that I had obviously put to one side to read later. Well I’m glad I finally did read it and I commend it to you, and…
If management is the science of getting the right people, with the right things, in the right place, at the right time, in order to achieve the right effect, then leadership is the art of achieving more than the science of management says is possible. That is, when there aren’t enough people, money is tight…
No doubt you’ve heard it all before: the on-demand economy will exacerbate the trend toward enforced self-reliance that has been gathering pace since the 1970s. Each of us will have to master multiple skills and keep those skills up to date. We will need to take more responsibility for educating themselves, selling ourselves, through personal…
We can learn a great deal from good leadership but we can also learn from poor leadership. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced some really great leaders, but I’ve also suffered my fair share of real duffers. In a world that increasingly asks us to embrace change and inspire innovation I’ve nailed down my top…
I am a strong believer that, human nature being what it is, there is little new under the leadership and management sun. So in our September 2016 blog, I shared with you a selection of the leadership lessons from my naval hero Lord Nelson. This time, in the interests of balance, I thought it only…
We live in a networked world in which issues and problems, from global warming to terrorism and inequality, flow through webs of connection causing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). In this environment, people are beginning to question whether traditional leaders are up to the job. Equally, we are seeing the growing power of networks…
For the first blog of the New Year I’d like to reinvigorate an old idea. MBWA (Management by Walking Around) is rather taken for granted these days, as is often the case when a good idea becomes cliché. So to reinvigorate the importance of talking with your staff, I’d like to introduce MBTA, ‘Management by…
Next month sees the 211th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar (21st October 1805), when twenty-seven British ships of the line, led by Admiral Lord Nelson aboard HMS Victory, defeated a combined fleet of thirty-three French and Spanish ships off the southwest coast of Spain, just west of Cape Trafalgar. The Franco-Spanish fleet lost twenty-two…