You’d have thought I’d have flogged the “theatre direction = leading” analogy to death by now, but it was given another lease of life last week, when I was asked to speak to the off-site gathering of a team about what theatre can teach us about teamwork. I distilled my thoughts about it into 10Continue reading “10 lessons about teamwork I learned through theatre”
Category Archives: Organisations
September’s interesting reads
I love that I get to read so much in my new role. I hope you find something here to inspire you. I loved this piece on how public intellectuals over-simplify the future. One of the basic tenets of doing foresight work is that we are not trying to predict the future, rather explore possibleContinue reading “September’s interesting reads”
Finding the key to a good team culture
As the end of year draws near, the Events team decided to take some time to do some thinking, discussing and culture-building. So we had a team day today! We started with a workshop-style session. We had done some work earlier in the year on our KPIs to feed into the global annual programme andContinue reading “Finding the key to a good team culture”
An amazing month of sport
July has been a month with lots of sporting activity. It’s reminded me to think about what success is in the broadest possible sense.
Going beyond the interview
In among all of the other craziness of recent weeks, I’ve also had to recruit to a vacancy in the team. We had more than 70 applications for the post and going through them reinforced the points that I made in this piece on Medium in 2018. This time I did something that I haven’tContinue reading “Going beyond the interview”
Leading v managing
What’s the difference between leading and managing? I’ve extended my theatre director analogy to help me think it through.
Personal reflections on Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organizations
This is an edited version of a post that was originally published on 29 April 2015. In April 2015, I attended a conference on the Future of Work, organised by the Centre for Workplace Leadership at the University of Melbourne. My Masters project was around social network theory and human resources and I had beenContinue reading “Personal reflections on Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organizations”
My framework for thinking about creativity at work
My 6 ways of thinking about creativity in organisations, based on academic research
Retuning my cultural antenna
I had a funny reminder recently of how I’m going to face some real culture shock when I head back to Brussels. This story is a useful reminder of the importance of inter-cultural communication skills, and the dangers inherent in making assumptions. I’m trying to find a role to go back to and had beenContinue reading “Retuning my cultural antenna”
My 7 principles for plain writing
Plain writing is important in many areas of life and work. These are 7 principles I use to get a headstart.