September 19, 2017
Meetings aren’t going away. Their length and frequency has increased over the past 50 years and executives now spend an average of 23 hours per week in them. In the 1960s it was 10 hours a week. Meetings are a necessary part of organisational life but they feel endless when…
August 24, 2015
I was interviewed by Charlie Taylor from the Irish Times about the dreaded performance review. Following the news that Accenture is dropping the process there’s a flurry of interest in whether these processes are of any value or not. Lucy Kellaway writes about it here. My own view about performance…
March 24, 2015
It’s always nice to get positive feedback. A bottle of champagne is terrific…perhaps a card or two? But what about when a student tells you that you have successfully dismantled his entire understanding of people management in a two hour class on Managing Change Well that’s delicious feedback. Why? Because…
June 10, 2014
I keep returning to this Benjamin Zander TED talk in which he uses Chopin to demonstrate the essential characteristics of leadership. Apart from being passionate about your subject or area of work, you also need to believe that you can inspire others to tap into their own passions too. It’s…
November 20, 2011
On Thursday 30th November I will be presenting some of my work at the monthly case conference at IPTAR. The notice is below and it would be great to see you there. The Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) Center for Socio-Analytic Studies Monthly Case Conference Wednesday, November…
August 4, 2011
More than ever these days we need help figuring things out – what will we do next? How have we got ourselves into this situation? What are the options? What do people think of us? Facilitating conversations is what I do and I’m used to being with groups of people…
June 24, 2011
I came across the Chooky Dancers via a colleague at an event in Melbourne recently. When words won’t do the job we want them to, the arts step up to challenge us about uncomfortable stereotypes and assumptions. Watch this short clip and then ask yourself if the arts can provide…
May 18, 2011
In an era of endless multiple choice and a solution for every problem – is it possible that too much choice can make us selfish? It appears so and this article from Discover Magazine makes for depressing reading. In outlining a research experiment undertaken by Krishna Savani from Columbia University it…
May 3, 2011
At its center is the belief that subjectivity matters, that regardless of how many millions of circuits science shows are carrying out the work of the brain without our awareness, we still experience a unified sense of self that gives our lives coherence and meaning. In this regard, experts argue, psychoanalysis,…
April 18, 2011
I do a lot of work with boards of directors and management committees wanting to take time out to review where they are and where they are going. Sometimes this involves organising and facilitating “retreats” (I use that word advisedly because in Ireland ‘retreat’ has religious connotations!). But I digress..…
