Transparency & Trust: A New Metric for Leadership

We need a better way to evaluate our business leaders, assert James O’Toole and Warren Bennis in a recent Harvard Business Review article “A Culture of Candor,” (June 2009). It’s no longer prudent to judge American corporate leaders’ performance solely on the extent to which they create wealth for investors.

Moving forward, a new metric is proposed: the extent to which executives create organisations that are economically, ethically and socially sustainable.

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Turning Complaints into Commitments

What are people complaining about in your organisation?

• “We never have a chance to really talk about the big picture of our work. We’re under so much pressure to deliver what is needed now. There’s little opportunity to understand how things tie in with larger goals; consequently, there’s no breathing space for creativity or innovation.“
• “I’d be able to grow and develop at work if I didn’t have to babysit around here…If my subordinates didn’t come to me for every little decision and if they would take more initiative, I’d be freer to do the same in my own job.”
• “There’s too much talking behind one’s back here. People talk about others, but rarely to others. I don’t feel people come to me directly; I find out about things from other people. If I knew and had a chance to talk to the person with a complaint, then we could confront the issues and work on solutions.”

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The Truth About Motivation

Most business leaders have lost sight of what motivates people at work. In fact, some companies haven’t updated their management practices in years,  which means they’re incapable of creating high-performance teams.

Companies continue to ignore the obvious: Offering incentives and rewards is less effective than tapping into truly meaningful intrinsic motivation. Leaders operate on old assumptions about motivation despite a wealth of well-documented scientific evidence.

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Leading From the Middle

In these uncertain times, credibility and trust in senior leaders and their capacity to move organisations has taken a nosedive. Now is a golden opportunity for leaders in the middle to step up and launch a rescue operation to fill the gap and advance their career.

Leaders are almost by definition people who change minds.  —Howard E. Gardner, Leading Minds

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Think or Sink: The one choice that changes everything

What if you could get anything that you wanted without having to change your circumstances? What if you could master your mind so that it would actually alter your experience? What if you could be happy and stress-free regardless of what was going on around you? What if 2010 could be your greatest year ever because you discovered the ONE choice that changes everything?

Wouldn’t you be even the teeniest bit interested?

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Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail: Creating Goals That Last the Distance

 Are you enthusiastic about your plans for the new year? Perhaps you want to lose weight, get fit, study, earn more money, improve your relationships, invest in your personal development or uncover more business opportunities. Or maybe you’re a little more cynical about New Year, deciding instead not to waste your time with new “resolutions”, because, like most people, you’ll probably wind up breaking them.

How do you make New Year’s Resolutions and goals that last the distance?

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Di Features in HR Magazine Cover Story on “Sustainable Change”

I was interviewed recently for the cover story of Human Capital Magazine Issue 7.9

Magazine Editor Iain Hopkins writes…” Di.. has a knack for bringing broad concepts of social change and applying those concepts to the business world. Her excellent book A Climate for Change , uses global warming as the springboard into analysis of what does and does not work in many corporate change initiatives… ”

Catch the full story at http://issuu.com/keymedia/docs/ozhc7.9

Change Agents – An Unlikely Hero

Phil Black from CNN News brought the Middle Eastern story of a Baghdad traffic cop from Good Morning Middle East and onto the international stage, describing him as an “unlikely but effective hero in a city that needs a lot of them”. The traffic official he is referring to is General Amar Al Kayet. General Amar  is an ordinary man in Iraq’s Baghdad who has taken an extraordinary stand to save the lives of people travelling in vehicles on Baghdad’s perilous streets. 

Baghdad’s streets are not only congested with angry, hot and impatient drivers caught in gridlock nearly every day, but the streets are also plagued with the dangers of speeding military convoys, violence and murder. The casualties of Iraqi traffic police are high. So high that Iraq’s  Traffic Police Directorate has established a web page which honours the traffic martyrs who have been killed in the line of duty at www.itp.gov.iq.

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Change Management – How to bring social networking technology into business without it feeling like a pill

Where do you stand when it comes to Web 2.0 and the new tools of social networking like blogging, Facebook, Linked In, My Space and Plaxo? As far as you’re concerned, is it still a fad to be ignored – the domain of the Gen Ys and the Techno Geeks from Gen X?  Have you fully embraced the power of the networking, collaboration and business development opportunities these tools have to offer you and your business? Or are you still dabbling – sitting the fence somewhere.

I confess that I am a dabbler when faced with the practical application of new technologies. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what these new technologies can do. I do – it comes with the territory of being an ideas person. In fact, It’s a big part of my new book which is all about Change and what works in the 21st century. It’s just that the practical application of these things is not really my strong suit. Frankly, I find it a time-consuming, boring hassle to learn. But heh, I have my own blog now which only took a year or so from the idea to finally get my act together - so that’s saying something.

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Beware the pitfalls of downsizing, restructuring and employee redundancy

The last economic downturn to affect Australia saw a widespread cut back in apprentice training. While the effects weren’t experienced immediately,  the absence of new talent entering the workforce on such a large scale meant that it was nearly 10 years before Australia returned to the same level of technical skill it enjoyed prior to the downturn. Arguably, the detrimental impact of the “solution” turned out to be far more serious to the country than the initial problem.  This is just one example of the potentially harmful downstream consequences of downsizing and cutbacks that business is pursuing in the current economic climate.

Being mindful of the pitfalls of large scale downsizing and employee redundancy was the clear message that Heather Ridout, Chairman of the Australian Industry Group gave to business in a recent 7.30 Report Interview. Heather is not a lone voice in the wilderness on this topic. In the wake of weekly announcements that big business is shedding staff in mammoth proportions, other business and political leaders are joining a growing voice around the world warning of the consequences of these knee-jerk reactions to sustain short-term business viability.

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