Some thoughts on toxic masculinity, its role in male mistreatment of women, how we tackle it, and why both #notallmen and the backlash against it give me a problem Read More
Toxic masculinity and my problem with #notallmen
Does empathy always make better leaders?
There’s a lot of talk about how leaders need to be empathetic, but is it really as simple as that? Read More
‘Sorry’ seems to be the hardest word in recruitment – so why bother?
If you’ve ever seriously looked for any kind of work, there’s a good chance you’ve experienced the sound of silence. I mean that particular kind of void you sometimes enter when you’ve submitted your highly polished CV, smashed the job interview, or yielded to that seductive ‘Your profile looks great, let’s talk’ connection request. … Read More
Artificial intelligence versus the Art of the Deal
I’ve been thinking a lot about whether artificial intelligence (AI) could have a role in helping us do better deals more efficiently, without all that negotiation rigmarole that we’re so used to. With the UK and the EU embroiled in possibly the biggest politico-economic deal of our lifetime, and the leader of the free… Read More
It’s not unconscious bias, it’s what we do with it that matters
Like many who’ve worked as people managers, I had the benefit of being trained in dealing with unconscious bias as part of my job. Unsurprisingly, I’ve been thinking a lot about it again since George Floyd’s brutal murder and the rise of Black Lives Matter. I thought it might be worth sharing some of… Read More
A lesson from Florence Nightingale in managing unprecedented times
‘Unprecedented’ is one word I’m looking forward to hearing a lot less once we get through this. It’s not just hearing it on TV every five minutes which grates, it’s the nagging feeling that ‘unprecedented’ isn’t really that unusual. Lots of what we deal with, particularly in business, is unprecedented. Hearing the word constantly repeated… Read More
Be angry, but play the ball not the man
Just before it all got a bit grim, I was writing a piece on women’s equality. I was thinking about women’s justified anger over our sorry sexist history, how we need to embrace that anger then get beyond it if we are going to tackle inequality properly. “Play the ball, not the man” is an… Read More
Just keep swimming : A personal view on coping with lockdown
Three years ago I took early retirement from a full-time office job. Suddenly, and for the first time in decades, I was spending a lot more time at home and having to work out what to do with my days. Was it anything like lockdown? Of course not, but it did make me think about… Read More
From Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson – Leadership styles and the power of ‘We’
When UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on TV that we needed to be prepared to lose loved ones before their time to the Covid-19 virus, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in feeling shocked, even though I knew something like this was coming. Perhaps not surprising, as this was probably the first time since World… Read More
The farmer and the cowherd, the innovator and the enterprise architect should be friends
A couple of recent articles got me thinking about the relationship between innovation and enterprise architecture in the digital business age. At first glance, the two areas may seem as closely related as a unicorn and a public library. However, Chris Barianuk’s BBC News piece “Blockchain: The Revolution that hasn’t quite happened” and Gerben Wierda’s Linkedin… Read More
Nick Teale 