A note to young leaders. I was asked at a Christmas function recently, by a regular reader of my blog: “So, do you think you’re a great leader?” I was slightly taken aback by the question, so I paused and smiled to collect my thoughts: “You’ll have to ask the people I work with that […]
Read More… from Keep Walking: Leadership Isn’t Mastered, It’s Earned
A note to young leaders. Have you found 2024 to be a challenging year? Join the club. When the economy slows, most relationships go into reflection mode. And since humans aren’t that good at self-reflection, we tend to focus on the faults in others – rather than in ourselves. Easier to look out the window […]
Read More… from Finish Hard: A Note to Young Leaders in Tough Times
A note to young leaders. The period between Christmas and Australia Day is a graveyard for deals. Why? Because investing is an act of faith. Strategy, feasibility and analysis get you to the precipice, but the decision to jump is emotional. If you let the feeling pass, odds are you won’t jump. Not least because […]
Read More… from Time Kills Deals: A Holiday Lesson for Young Leaders
To the prudent, life is one long lesson in audacity. To the audacious, it’s a long lesson in prudence. We all have a natural tendency to lean one way or the other. Prudence and audacity are best practised together, in alternating steps. Life is a tight rope act, requiring continuous adjustment. As soon as you […]
Read More… from Walking the Line: On Prudence, Audacity, and Balance
Never cancel a business meeting. (Other than in the case of a genuine emergency.) If the meeting in question is unimportant, then going ahead with it will teach you not to be so cavalier with your time. That’s a valuable lesson, well worth the time squandered. If the meeting is important, then – regardless of […]
Read More… from Never Cancel Lightly: The Hidden Value of Showing Up
Drink your company’s Kool-Aid, but only three-quarters of the way through. Believe and act as though you’re number two – (even if you’re number one). In 1962, Avis Rental Cars trailed behind the market leader, Hertz. Rather than shrink away from that fact, they embraced it. They launched a now legendary advertising campaign that proudly […]
Read More… from Stay Hungry: Believe in Your Brand, But Never Settle
Be a prophet in the life of someone younger than you. In her book, The Power of Positive Prophecy, Laurie Jones provides an account of how one person’s word had a lasting impact on another: “I grew up in an alcoholic household where I never heard a positive word. On my way home from school, […]
Read More… from Be the Spark: Speak Belief into Someone’s Future
Beware too much navel-gazing, especially when business is slow. Business is at its best when people are busy. In 1997, the late John Caldon – the brilliant, former Deputy MD of Macquarie – told me that an Executive Director in the Corporate Finance division had just returned from an MBA at Harvard and had commenced […]
Read More… from Do Deals, Not Therapy: Action Beats Analysis in Business
Does it feel like 2024 has been a “heavy year”? It’s because it’s carrying the complex psychological loads of Covid. Covid may have ended 1.5 years ago but its impacts are still reverberating throughout corporations and societies across the globe. Covid acted as a “giant pause button” on a lot of things. It suspended all […]