The context for our work remains leadership and culture. The primary focus of our work is on managers as the expression and conduit of these.
In terms of culture, engagement, and performance we believe that managers are the most impactful people in the organisation. We need brilliant leadership absolutely (and many great consultants are offering programs in that space).
Having recently returned from study at the Harvard Kennedy School, Helen shares her thoughts from her inspired time whilst attending the Art and Practice of Leadership Development (APL) programme led by Professor Heifetz.
Sometimes it seems that if you wanted to design a workplace where people can't do their best work, you would design the 9-5 office model.
As we come to the chaotic end of the year when 'everything' has to be done, it becomes too easy to lose sight of the big picture. When we are caught up in the minutiae everything becomes urgent. We lose sight of what we have achieved and think only of what is still to be done.
For many years now, we have been seeing this push to leadership. It's been the new black for quite some time and we see a massive amount of resources thrown into leadership programs. But, I wonder... are leadership programs delivering the results we want, or are we missing the point?
Last week I hit overload. My mushy brain hurt. Too many things to do and every addition fell just short of overwhelm. My colleagues would ask me a question and I'd look at them like a rabbit startled in headlights. So I wrote a list of all the things I had to do at work. I wrote them in categories and I wrote it all, the big things and the small. The immediate things and the later things. Seventeen pages later I was done and my brain felt like it had been spring cleaned...
