Why Making Paradigm Shifts is SO Hard
Moving from an industrial ‘might’ to an information ‘byte’ education system will require a Herculean effort – supported by listening, collaboration and an open mindset. The dominant paradigm has been in place for the best part of two centuries, but [...]
Breaking out of the mould requires perseverance
I recently attended a “Toxic Masculinity” workshop sponsored by a local baseball club that had tragically lost 2 of its members to suicide in the past year. Bill's Story The purpose of the workshop was to help men redefine what it means to be a man and learn [...]
Throw out the Carrots, Burn the Sticks … and Watch Employee Motivation Blossom
I’m often asked how to motivate employees. Indeed it’s a ‘perennial’ question with added urgency for managers wondering how to motivate a ‘Millennial’ generation where old school tactics such as rewards, recognition and fear are no longer producing [...]
Confidence – not perfection – should be the goal
The great debate continues. A controversial OpEd by clinical psychologist Lisa Damour in the New York Times about the fundamentally different approaches girls and boys take to school assignments caught my eye the other day. Lisa’s observation - based on years [...]
Employee wellbeing starts with job control not yoga classes
Many of us have taken up some form of mindfulness or movement practice to help manage our stress and ageing bodies. I love going to yoga a couple of times a week for both the mental benefits that help soothe the week’s stress as well as the physical benefits [...]
Short-term focus on “pay” leads to long-term “payn”
Unless they’ve been living in a cave, everyone in Australia will be familiar with the results of the recent Royal Commission into the state of the financial services sector in Australia. The Commission’s senior counsel assisting, Rowena Orr highlighted the [...]
It’s our mindsets (not the economy) silly!
Over the past 3 decades I've been fortunate to have pretty good flexibility in where, when and how I work. It's allowed me the space I need to reflect and think so I could see how to optimise my productivity and get stuff done to achieve goals. In the early [...]
Does your leadership style produce results?
Historically leadership style simply referred to the way a leader went about providing direction, implementing plans and motivating people. Their leadership style described what they did and how they did it but didn't explicitly refer to what results the [...]
Is too much discretionary effort a bad thing?
According to conventional wisdom, a critical task for managers is to motivate employees to ‘go the extra mile’ for the company. What does that mean in practice to expend 'discretionary effort? For employees it means putting in extra time by volunteering to [...]
50 Years of Motivation
A few years ago I had the good fortune to spend time with Professor Victor Vroom while I was presenting at the Yale School of Management’s CEO College in New York. Victor is an academic hero of mine, an expert on motivation and one of the most influential [...]