Most leadership books suffer from the problem that the seem to presuppose that leadership is about developing and using certain qualities (which ignores personality) that are universally valid (which ignores context). Russ Palmer, who has been CEO in three different environments, discusses the importance of context in a podcast interview on the Knowledge @ Wharton…
Author Archives: cj
When meaning matters
In my time at ABB the official company language (according to our CEO, Goran Lindahl) was “poor English”. Native speakers cut slack for those less proficient and many of us were grateful that we didn’t have to learn several languages in order to get the work done. A side effect of English as the lingua…
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Business Forum
I attended the 3rd Business Forum for small and medium-sized enterprises on Thursday in Baden-Baden. (Nice to have a short trip for a change!) I applaud the organisers for developing this conference in what has been a pretty dull economic climate in Germany over the past few years. The conference ran under the motto “A…
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After the break …
I’ve taken a break from blogging since my last entry just after our architect’s suicide. It was a good way to process the emotions and keep my energy for the important day-to-day tasks in maintaining my relationship and running the business. Behind our house a garden has lain untended for years. We have negotiated a…
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Putting things in perspective
Over the past few months we have been renovating the house we bought last Autumn, so that I and my partner can have our own practices on the ground floor. Last Sunday our architect passed away suddenly. There’s been lots of speculation about how and why. That’s not helpful at this time. Some comforting thoughts…
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Give the other person a chance to do some of the work
In a recent leadership team-building workshop, we practiced giving clean feedback. Later, Jane asked me during a break for a chat about how to deal with another participant who had blocked her attempt at giving feedback on a behaviour causing a lot of friction between them – during shift handover, Mary reacted to improvement suggestions…
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When Google offers too much of a good thing
Knowledge@Wharton has brought an English-based network of knowledge communities to my attention, knuru, that offers a natural language search engine, mainly for business topics. The search returns two lists on tabbed pages: the first from the Knowledge@Wharton archives, the second from news sources. This is useful for those searches where Google’s lack of context awareness…
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Does it have to be this tough at the top?
If you’ve ever wondered why your boss hates you, then read this article from today’s Guardian; it lists ten common reasons. The boss, as described, could do with some sculpting, or at least some leadership development. They seem to be victim to the all-too-common phenomenon of naming someone to a post and assuming that that’s…
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Slow Leadership
A great resource I’ve come across, thanks to registering at technorati, is the leadership blog slow leadership. The approach is inspired by slow food and the approach fits beautifully to sculpting. Here’s some useful information on stress from this weekend’s entry.
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The $650 Billion Question
Today’s New York Times reports on the latest research findings on multitasking and workplace interruption. Neuroscientists have a better idea of how much efficiency is lost when people attempt to handle even two tasks at the same time, so even that hands-free set for your mobile phone is no help when driving. It seems like…
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