Virtual teams are increasingly a fact of organisational life, a part of our ever expanding socio-technical system. While many teams operate with ‘mixed modality’, part virtual part face to face, virtual teams can be defined as work groups which have some core members who interact primarily through electronic means and are engaged in interdependent tasks.…
Attempts at wholesale cultural change are costly, disruptive and unlikely to succeed. This is because culture rests upon long held ideas, customs, habits and attitudes, which have become the largely unexamined ‘way we do things around here’. A more fruitful approach is to identify and reinforce those behaviours that are congruent with your change programme…
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…
Whether you are taking on your first role as a manager, swatting up for a management position interview in a new business, or making the move from functional to general management, you will need to demonstrate that you understand the wider concerns of the business. As well as dealing with the day to day issues…
Are you struggling to change an individual, your team or your organisation to adopt a new way of doing things? The problem may be that you are trying to change their attitude, rather than focusing on their behaviour. Some years ago I spent time in Afghanistan, working to influence the Afghan population to support the…
The EU referendum offered voters a simple binary decision, ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain’, an either/or answer to a hugely complex question. Neither was going to solve the problems we face in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, and either way a significant portion of the population were going to be dissatisfied with the answer.…
If a bat and ball costs £1.10 and the bat costs a pound more than the ball, how much does the ball cost? If the answer that jumps to mind is ten pence you are not alone, but you are wrong! Have another look (the answer is at the end of this post). The problem is…
Here’s a challenge for you and a colleague. Get yourselves a large piece of paper (a sheet from a flipchart or a broadsheet newspaper is ideal) and place it on the floor. Now, the challenge is for you both to stand on the paper, but without being able to touch one another. Sounds impossible, but…
Sheryl Sandberg famously advised women to ‘Lean In’. However, when dealing with difficult tasks and decisions women and men might be better advised to ‘Lean Back’. Research has revealed that people who are having trouble making decisions can benefit from creating some physical, and thereby psychological, distance between themselves and the problem. The researchers, Manoj…
I am an introvert. That doesn’t mean I’m shy or afraid of what people might think of me: I’ve spent my career standing up in front of people. It just means that I tend to get my energy from quiet time, when I recharge my batteries, and I like time to think and reflect. You…