Educating Knowledge Workers in the Info Age
The late Peter Drucker has been described as the founder of modern management. I still remember the title of his textbook “Practices of Management: Planning, Directing, Organising and Controlling” when I first studied management at university in the [...]
Employee happiness depends on the boss
I’ve long been interested in the relationship between employee job satisfaction and work-related performance ever since I read about the famous Hawthorne studies conducted by Elton Mayo, a Harvard professor and generally regarded as the founder of the [...]
Cutthroat Cooperation or Friendly Competition?
Conventional wisdom dictates that competition - regardless of whether it’s in the classroom, on the playing field or between business rivals – is good because it builds character, boosts productivity and delivers better outcomes. The degree to which the [...]
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 [...]
Re-training for Life…and a Life of Re-training
In the good old days, high school students wanting to train for a job/career had a choice – go to college to learn a trade or similar vocational qualification or head to university and gain a tertiary education. These days, it’s not that simple. Instead of [...]
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 [...]
Great performance starts with great relationships
What criteria does your company use when recruiting new board members or executive team leaders? My guess is that professional credentials, experience, track record and subject matter expertise are at the top of the list. Interpersonal and relationship skills, [...]
Driving Performance Through Quality Performance Conversations
Over the past five years, a revolution in Performance Management has taken place. Companies such as Accenture, Microsoft and PWC have dumped their traditional "backward looking" ratings approach and have adopted or are experimenting with "goal oriented" [...]
Making teams work takes work
Working in Teams is something we can all relate to. There is huge quantities of literature on how to create high performing teams and many professionals available to help our teams work more effectively. Yet my guess would be that many of us would say the teams [...]