Blog

I’ve been asked by some clients, as well as others who seek my perspective on such things, what Covid has wrought in today’s workplace and how we can adapt to “the new normal.” While my counsel is invariably a response to specific problems arising from largely unforeseen circumstances, what follows is my current thinking on […]

This is about executives not leaders, at least as I define them. Executives occupy elevated positions in organizations and hold impressive titles that signify their level of responsibility. One might hope or assume executives are leaders. Many are but a surprising number are not. How do I know this? Among other callings, I’m an executive […]

We are witnessing a generational realignment of the employer-employee relationship and one of the critical leadership decisions in this seismic shift is defining the organization’s purpose. Although fundamentally different, the idea of purpose seems to have replaced (or, in some cases, combined) two longstanding words in the strategic playbook: vision and mission. It’s a confusing […]

The objective of every smart leader is to surround herself with a team of really bright, energetic and talented people. These men and women are the most valuable assets your organization will ever possess. They’re capable of accomplishing great things if and when they’re encouraged and enabled to realize their full potential. The relationship is […]

Persuasion.  Many believe persuasion is the art of convincing others to see things their way. They’re partially correct. But what if we rethink it as a process of learning rather than influencing? This counter-intuitive notion requires us to listen rather than preach and to seek different conclusions rather than proselytize. In this paradigm, persuasion has […]

How we think is who we are. It shapes our identity – our distinctive way of discerning among competing claims and contradictory evidence to deal with the problems we face. And that is what determines our destiny. How we think triggers our emotional and rational responses to perceived threats or opportunities. It enables us to […]

Who you associate with is crucial to what you become. Those who ascend to positions of power and influence build and maintain reliable and robust networks which they count on for timely advice, insights and support as needed. They understand that no one has all the answers, can be completely objective or could ever know […]

We converse with ourselves all the time. This self-talk enables us to make sense of our experiences, activate our responses to them and run different simulations on options for the future. This silent internal monologue has a powerful impact on who we believe we are and on how we choose to live our lives. Allowing […]

2021 will soon be in the rearview mirror and I’m thinking the world would be a better place with a little more humility. Especially among our leaders. This quality of mind recognizes that we can’t know everything we think we do, that we’re often wrong and rarely better than most. While it’s a fairly simple […]

Fifteen months ago, I posted a blog entitled How to Say No. Feedback from a few valued subscribers posed the subsequent question: When should I be saying no? Here’s my response. For some, saying no isn’t easy. Especially to those we sense an obligation of some kind. It’s also difficult after we’ve already said yes. […]

We like to believe we’re good listeners. We also assume we listen with our ears. We don’t – we hear with our ears. Listening is a quite different matter. Most hear; few listen. Hearing is a natural act; listening is not. Just as the eyes don’t see – they convert light into electrical impulses that […]

This ebook is now available on this site and is no longer on Amazon. If interested, you can find it here along with some excerpts and reviews. Instructions on how to download are noted – it comes as an EPUB in a zip file. We recommend Calibre as an ebook reader but you may have […]

Personality.  For decades, psychologists claimed our personalities are fundamentally unchangeable after about the age of 30 but that our behaviours are malleable. I find that distinction troublesome, largely because my mission is to liberate potential and change lives. If our behaviours are adaptive, surely they must also influence our disposition and character. Psychosomatic medicine has […]

Resilience is one of the great puzzles of human nature. Whether in the cancer ward, the battlefield or the boardroom, it determines who succeeds and who fails. During my recent hiatus from blog writing, it struck me that the ugly events of the past two years – the pandemic, humanitarian crises, increasing division, anger, violence […]

Bias is the crutch our brains use to simplify our lives and keep us happy. We like to believe we’re in control of our brains and that we act rationally based on our self-interests. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our brain has a mind of its own and the focus of neuroscience is […]

What is wisdom? We often use the word but are hard pressed to define it. Like understanding the true meaning of quality or excellence, it’s a mystery for many – one that inspires both awe and trepidation. Perhaps the confusion arises from seemingly conflicting connotations. It’s certainly a lot more than possessing knowledge. Indeed, most […]

Smart leaders solicit and accept good advice from those they trust to provide it. They understand no one is bright enough, objective enough or experienced enough to consistently know what to do or how best to do it. (Intellectual humility is a sine qua non of leadership.) While many sources of counsel are readily available, […]

Remembering and forgetting pervade and enable everything we do. Without this involuntary capability we wouldn’t know who we are or what to do next. But our memory is notoriously inaccurate, incomplete and fallible. Some recollections last a few seconds; others last a lifetime. Our brains just aren’t built to remember a lot of important stuff […]

Courage.  Some equate courage with those who make the ultimate sacrifice. I do not. That is valour. Courage is different. It’s a quality of mind that enables one to confront fear with calm focus and resolve, like getting up every day with the determination to do better. Trying to understand and reconcile beliefs that run […]

We are born with insatiable curiosity. In our youth, everything was a question as we tried to figure out a world filled with mystery. Paul Harris, an authority on early childhood education, says that between the ages of two and five, children pose over 100 questions an hour – two-thirds of which are efforts to […]

Failure is inevitable. It’s the distinguishing feature of economies, businesses, governments and relationships. Almost 98% of all new products fail; 97% of all patents never make money; 90% of oil wells drilled are dry; 80% of venture-capital funded firms go under; 80% of corporate mergers and acquisitions add no new value; 70% of new drugs […]

Recently, I was interviewed about “the games people play” for an Australian television production. The host was well informed and his questions well researched. Watch below if you have an interest in my answers. Hope you find it enjoyable. Jim You can get your copy of The Game of Life by visiting our Books page, or […]

To achieve their unscrupulous objectives, skillful manipulators prey upon our fears, sense of obligation to those we admire or feelings of guilt about what we’ve done. They’re usually quite friendly, sometimes even intimate, when they get what they want. But they use their familiarity with our vulnerabilities to shape their strategies for seeking advantage. That […]

You stream a new movie on Netflix and the next day discuss it with a friend who also saw it. A particular scene, pivotal to the plot, excites you and you seek her thoughts on it. That’s when you discover you must have watched a different film. She saw details you didn’t even notice, had […]

The brain is designed for mimicry – we learn by copying the behaviour of others. This determines in large measure who we are and what we seek in life. We have an innate need to belong. Our mindset is more one of dependency than independency. Early in our lives, we connect with our parents, siblings […]

I have several heroes whose lives I have studied in depth and whose thinking gives me inspiration and guidance. Among them, for different reasons, are Albert Einstein and Walt Disney. What intrigues and informs me about their remarkable accomplishments is how they each, in their own unique way, approached and solved the problems and addressed […]

Oysters are the silent, non-responsive players in the game of life. I chose the label for an obvious reason: when we know how to expertly open them up without damaging their fragile egos, we may discover a pearl and the kind of communication that could lead to more productive encounters in future. For this to […]

Luck happens.  Just as the reverse is true. Unexpected and unpredictable occurrences we had nothing to do with can be both good and bad. The trick is to know what to do when the good appears and it’s consequential. At least half of smart leadership (or anything else for that matter) is knowing how to […]

Business leaders need to understand that creativity is not the enemy of efficiency. It’s simply the ability to think differently. This can be time-consuming, disruptive or even repugnant in corporate cultures that pride metrics, spreadsheets, speed and bottom-line proficiency. But it’s skills-based hard work. And, in today’s unpredictable, hyper-competitive world, where better, faster and cheaper […]

We all make mistakes. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t learn much. Failure produces resilience, resilience builds character and character is our destiny. We need adversity to find clarity and coherence in our lives – to discover who we are and what we can be. The challenge, of course, is that we don’t much like being […]

Super-agreeables are people pleasers – compliant, sweet folks who never want to upset others but who end up doing just that. They lead us to believe they’re in total agreement with our ideas or requests, only to let us down when we expect them to do what they said they would do. These friendly, willing […]