‘It’s just this kind of ordinary zone of getting done the things you need to get done and making sure your work has the impact it’s supposed to have.’ There’s a lot of talk about high performance in leadership literature. But perhaps a more realistic goal, and the one with…
‘We don’t understand much about hope, and yet people are crying out for it from leaders.’ If you ever hear someone dismissively say ‘hope is not a strategy’, be sure to introduce them to Ian Pettigrew, author of Hope is a Strategy. He will disabuse them of the idea that…
‘Almost every experience that I have is a story that I’m going to tell.’ We often think of great leadership as ‘magic,’ but the truth is that’s a convenient excuse. Great leaders aren’t born that way – they become great by leaning in to what John Amaechi describes as ‘ a…
‘The research shows that it’s stories that are the most powerful mobilizers of change.’ What does ‘story’ mean to you? Zoë Arden asked that question of more than 100 people, beginning her research, as she encourages us all to begin our stories, by listening first. Leaders have at their disposal…
‘The absence of healthy conflict is a large part of why people will leave jobs, because it’s not where the growth happens.’ How do you feel about hard conversations at work? Our approaches to conflict are often less than smart. Whether your tendency is towards avoidance or aggression, unless…
People who write business books – at least, business books worth reading – tend to think a little differently. This ‘Best Bits’ episode features a formidable line-up of disruptors, each of whom brings a very personal toolkit for unsettling the status quo, in work and in life. Challenging the system…
‘Every time I interviewed somebody, I said, is there anyone you think I should talk to? And so it had a network effect for me. My network grew with these generous, amazing, thoughtful people.’ Writing a novel can be lonely; writing a thesis can be demanding; writing a business book…
Leslie Grandy always wanted to be ‘creative’, but after discovering that she ‘sucked’ as a child at piano, painting, drama, dancing and so on she decided (to the relief of her teachers) that it simply wasn’t for her. Until she realized, in her corporate career working with visionary leaders like…
When I first started, people were like, “Don’t say the word paradox… don’t say it because they won’t get it.” And now people are like, “Oh my goodness, I need this.” When it’s a case of scarce resources – as it always seems to be, right? – our default thinking…
‘How do you make a strategy a story? The best leaders and the best communicators do that. They turn something that’s functional and rational into something that’s a story.’ John Dore, head of London Business School’s Senior Executive Program and founder of Wave Your Arms, wants you to reimagine your…
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