In a time of rapid change and disruption, a leader’s pursuit of transactional efficiency is the fastest path to irrelevance because it crowds out necessary transformational thinking. A wellness app or program, no matter how well designed, simply adds to the transactional load unless it’s accompanied by a deeper shift in our mental model of work and life.
One of the more challenging tasks for anyone in an organization is leading "up" to your boss. You have no authority over that person. In fact, they have all of the authority over you. Navigating this power imbalance requires cultivating influence and building a trust-based relationship. When it works, each person can make the greatest contribution to shared goals. This is never more true than in a crisis when a leader relies on followers for essential perspective on what is ...
I enjoyed moderating the opening session of the Emergency Show at the 2021 World Humanitarian Forum. Panelists Craig Fugate, Rupert Douglas-Bate, Paolo Garonna, and I explored the future of humanitarian response and how thinking needs to change. A clear theme was moving beyond the traditional donor country/recipient country relationship that fosters elitism. Instead, there were calls to acknowledge affected populations as a resource and deep listening to those communities to understand what they want and need. "The community knows best," ...
Crisis teams succeed or fail as teams—this is not an individual sport. Unless teams get used to working together in routine times, they are unlikely to gel when it matters most.
An organization's culture is dynamic. Leaders need to tend to all of the ingredients to get the outcome they desire.
From Eric's recent article for strategy+business: “I can’t wait to get everyone back to the office!” “I’m never going to need an office again!” From these two extremes to a thousand variations in between, leaders are thinking about what work will look like once a critical mass of the population has been vaccinated against COVID-19. Much of the conversation focuses on what we will do: where we will work and how much flexibility will be permitted (or demanded). A richer, ...
