Many thanks to Kati Järvinen, a colleague in the Enneagram in Business network, for bringing Stefan Sagmeister’s TED talk to my attention. In it, he describes how he made a conscious decision to take a one-year sabbatical every seven years and the impact of this decision. Conceptually, he took five years out of the retirement…
Category Archives: self-management
How much initiative do you want?
When discussing with clients how to lead subordinates, one question that arises often is, how much initiative should my people show? In their classic HBR article, Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey? Oncken and Wass lay out a five-level scale of managerial initiative (1 – 5 in the figure). My clients’ staff are more resourceful…
Shoulda, coulda, woulda …
Michael Bungay Stanier has just posed the question Should you be working on vacation? on his Great Work blog, as part of a follow-up to an entry on the Brazen Careerist blog: I’ll Be Working On Vacation: What’s Your Idea Of Work/Life Balance? “Should you …”: My life used to be full of shoulds, each…
One more time: Why Work-Life Balance isn’t healthy
In the Practice Makes Perfect blog, guest writer Barry Moltz wrote Work – Life Balance? Nonsense! about the artificial split between work and life. His basic suggestions is that in the age of the iPhone (or, in my case a Nokia E71) classical tips such as “never take work home” are no longer applicable. Work-Life…
A Basic Equation of Leadership
In his inner game work, Tim Gallwey distills coaching to the equation p = P – i. In longhand: performance = Potential – interference. In working as a leadership sculptor I’ve come to see the i as standing for imbalance. A lack of life balance — as Klaus Linneweh pointed out several years ago —…
The Art of Hosting
Approaches such as Open Space support the emergence of leadership in organizations. Some people think it’s enough to apply Open Space’s simple structure and wonderful things will happen. This is not always the case, the intention behind the method is important. I worked with a client in July and we used Open Space for part…
The benefits of keeping a cool head
In my leadership development work I meet many managers who are suffering from too much pressure in their lives and are unsure about what they can do to relieve the pressure. When I suggest a simple form of meditation or related form of relaxation, I am often met with scepticism or quizzical looks. It’s as…
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…
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…
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…
