Skip to content

As with blizzards and clippers, stress events can be forecast if somebody knows what the precipitating patterns will be and then can explain it to the rest of us in ways that we can relate to. A typical example of a major stress event that could have been, and maybe even was, forecast, is the abject collapse of Target in Canada. Failure to pay rent? A no-brainer for those of us who are or have been tenants or landlords. A clear and distinct signal. It is said that Target misjudged the Canadian market. 17,000 people are going to lose their jobs. Why? Did no-one read the signs? Not tell them about it? Or maybe there weren’t any other options?

Let’s consider what happens when we misjudge the severity of a winter storm: people are over-confident in undertaking road trips and skid into ditches

Stress is the snow on the road

As I return home from running workshops on how to manage one’s SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and the winter blues (i.e. not quite SAD, but on the brink), it strikes me that this blog may be useful to revisit.

Don’t feed the Black Dog of Depression

  • 1 min read

A business guru’s best-selling book told me some time ago that I have the wrong friends. The advice was that, if you want to be a winner, you have to associate with winners. It was clear from the text that by ‘winner’ was meant someone who had a track record of being a success in their chosen field, and by implication, someone who had/is making money and establishing a name for themselves. Winners are people who are leaders, innovators, visionaries, and above all, who are financially secure beyond most folks’ wildest dreams…..I have come to disagree totally with the notion that you need to cultivate friends who can help you get ahead. Those aren’t friends: they’re tour guides, agents, mentors, coaches, and even well wishers, but they move on. Friends are the ones who know what makes your heart ache and what music makes you leap up from your chair.

On Friendship and Getting Ahead

I wonder about the way in which great medical mysteries have been brought into common parlance, and think about the risks those curious surgeons of old took in digging up graves in order to explore human anatomy. I can’t help but wonder what these folk would think of someone upturning some of the gravestones in one of the little cemeteries on this road, taking a crowbar to the coffin, and carefully collecting the bones to be re-assembled in some dark cellar some place, studying the system of levers and pulleys that make up the human skeleton.

Courage, Confidence and Determination

“I don’t know” is not an acceptable answer. This blog is a simple story about a young consultant who ran out of ideas and said it. And then it is about an unexpected prod and a vote of confidence from an unexpected quarter that not only saved the day but shaped a life.

“I don’t know”

“Research has shown” – yes, it HAS! That unresolved conflict is bad for your bottom line. There are direct (visible) costs and there are indirect (hidden costs. Negative consequences follow failure to act; positive consequences await the business owner/manager who steps in and manages conflict.

GOOD WORKPLACE DYNAMICS IS THE SWING VOTE THAT TAKES YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

The Costs of Unresolved Conflict

Cleaning an oven takes vision, initiative, planning, determination, resilience, some level of physical ability and skill, plus the right tools and time. These are also the typical leadership requisites described in textbooks and expounded upon by consultants and leadership gurus.

Yet, do we ever ask our students in our leadership programmes how they approach oven cleaning, or whether they have ever cleaned an oven? Maybe some leaders would say “I don’t do ovens”; “my people clean my ovens”; or some other high level response.

Oven cleaning as a leadership story

It has become a fundamental principle (a principle from which other truths can be derived) that engaged employees do take care of your customers, bring in hard cash, and uphold the highest quality standards you can afford. There is a great deal of overlap in what are deemed to be the best questions to get the best answers, but it has not made much of a difference: the number of ‘engaged employees’ seems to stick at 30% according to various studies spanning at least a decade.

We are overthinking the issues of leadership and employee engagement.

Retrofitting Relationships at Work

  • 5 min read