A few months ago I was working on a particularly complex, frustrating and taxing project and during a conversation with the company CIO he said something that stopped me dead in my tracks and made me re-evaluate a few things. He said : ‚Don’t worry, it’s not personal. It’s business.‛ I have heard that expression used often enough and I must admit I’ve never really warmed to it. This time it actually made me sad. I was asked to step in and manage a project that was based in Wellington ‌ and I live in Auckland. ( That’s about the equivalent of Durban to Jo’burg.) Which meant a very early flight out of Auckland on Monday morning and a very late flight back on Friday afternoon. It meant evenings in a non-descript hotel room sitting with my laptop and eating room service. But mostly it meant being away from my husband. Oh, I know, the tragedy of the situation! Don’t worry, I’m not looking for sympathy here! In fact, I’m sure that many of you have been in similar or worse situations where you have been away from home for lengthy absences. My point is that I was making very PERSONAL sacrifices to do this job, so I really didn’t understand the maxim: ‘It’s not personal, it’s business.’ I don’t know about you, but time away from my family is very personal to me. So when the person I work for doesn’t understand that � I’m very worried.
Continue reading ‘It’s Not Personal, It’s Business. Or is it?’
We all admire strong leadership. In politics and religion, we may not agree with the leader’s intent, policies or beliefs but we are still free to admire their strength. In the business environment, strong leadership is not only encouraged, it is demanded of those who have been given responsibilities in the workplace.
To succeed, we too want to be strong leaders.
And so, in a desire to strengthen our leadership style, we may delve deeply into books on Leadership Theory, read biographies and autobiographies of the great leaders of history, reflect on the methods used by those who have authority over us in an attempt to ‚see what works‛. Knowledge is power. Power is strength. Strength is good leadership.
Continue reading ‘How to be a Strong Leader’
Challenged recently to ‘frame’ a leadership development process has led me to set out the following offering. Having had the opportunity to participate in several international leadership formation programmes I am, for the most part, left with a disquiet that is hard to articulate.
For one thing much of leadership formation is seen as a progamme rather than a process. Now, some might howl indignantly at this accusation and accuse me of splitting hairs or just playing with words. Perhaps they are right but let me give you an example of what I am getting at and you can make-up your own mind.
The ‘progamme mentality’ drives towards an end result. ‘Complete the programme and you have a leader’ is basically how it goes. Not too dissimilar I might add to a recipe which instructs the user to simply add some water, shake well and presto‌you have the finished product. Most programmes end with some or other certificate just to prove the point. As a consequence of this programme-obsessive approach is a surplus of leadership formation programmes but a dearth of leaders equipped to lead in an unforgiving and bewilderingly complex world. One of the more tangible outcomes of this approach is leaders who understand leadership as a qualification and a position rather than a process and about character. It has tended to produced a generation of leaders who emerge from such programmes with only answers and tragically few questions; leaders who now ‘know how to lead’ rather than inquiring leaders who realize that they are only at the beginning of the process in what will be a life-long pursuit.
Continue reading ‘Three Areas That Leaders Everywhere Dare Not Ignore’
Barrie Bramley provides insight into how to harness the creativityof your team by creating crazy zones. This is one company’s story…
How do you get 90 employees to double their department’s contribution to the company within three years? If you know Neville Dunn then you may want to ask him.
Dunn is the Financial Director of CBW Holdings. CBW is part of the Massmart Group of which their business includes approximately 59 individually branded cash and carry stores throughout South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Botswana.
Dunn’s department is staffed by 90 employees. These include members of staff from two finance departments who are from the companies that merged to create the current business, a year before he arrived in 2002.
Continue reading ‘The Crazy Zone - A case study’
We know the world is changing faster than ever before. We also knowthat much of this change can be ascribed to the explosion of information andcommunication technologies. But if it is true that information and knowledgedoubles faster than ever before, and if it is true that the skills we learntoday might very probably be totally redundant tomorrow, how do we go abouttraining people for the future? How do you train someone for a world thatdoesn’t yet exist?
In the January e-zine I presented an in-depth description of the changes the world are experiencing, how these changes are affecting the workplace and what characteristics one will need to succeed in tomorrow’s workplace (read it at http://www.tomorrowtoday.biz/articles/article_100.htm). I also gave a description of an educational theory that might give us some clues on how to approach training and development for the future. Now, let’s get practical. How should we develop people for the future? Whether we speak of formal training or coaching or the continuous empowering leadership required to develop your teams and individuals, this framework should prove to be helpful in various situations.
Continue reading ‘Developing people for the future’
For me, life has always been about challenge, passion, growth and making a difference. Working each day without experiencing these things would start to cause a slow death inside. I choose to try and live my life to the fullest, to push the limits of my potential. This means that I can’t rest too long in the comfort zone of life. I find that when the fear of staying is greater than the fear of changing, it is time to move on. This is what drove me � a ‘baby boomer’, single mom on the wrong side of 45 � to give up the comfort of a stable work environment to enter the challenging virtual world.
I undertook this challenge at the beginning of 2003 and moved from the work force as a director and co-owner of a business to the world of consulting. I was searching for opportunities where I could use my skills, have an impact, test my current knowledge and grow in new areas. The early part of my first year out of the office was driven by constant fluctuations between a fear of the unknown and the adrenalin of fresh prospects The South African Government and banking platform are not user-friendly to the small business owner. There is an enormous amount of red tape, forms to fill in and taxes to pay. One has to establish new ratings and credibility even if the same bank has dealt with you in your personal capacity for the past twenty years. At many points along this road I was tempted to give up. In the end, these setbacks only encouraged me to push beyond bureaucracy and make a go of it.
Continue reading ‘Baby Boomer in a Virtual World’
