Leading from any seat at your table
Read moreI ended our previous post with a brief outline of the concepts I would like to address in the weeks to come. It turns out that the first of these, the idea that we all have more influence than we recognize, is so important that it is the only one I plan to cover today. Over the past two decades, I have
So, what can a middle manager do to be happier?
Read moreAs a continuation of our theme from last week, I decided to give some of my own views on middle management. Hopefully, my discussion will leave you with a somewhat more optimistic view of what these people “lost in the middle” can do to improve their lot in life. Reading the article about the miseries of middle management in the Financial Times last week,
Miserable and disengaged at work?
Read moreThis weekend, I read yet another article in the Financial Times about how disenchanted middle managers are with their work lives. It was this headline that caught my attention: “Overworked and uninspired – the misery of the middle manager”. Of course, we have visited issues of employee engagement before on this blog. For example, on August 28 of this year, I wrote
How to use story in high-tech settings
Read moreLast week was a busy one. I was in Buenos Aires for Entrepreneurship Week, invited to speak at four very different venues in a five-day period. Each the places I gave talks was a first-time visit for me: two dynamic high-tech firms, one incubator for start-ups, and the local chapter of EO (Entrepreneur’s Organization—a global network of successful entrepreneurs). Two
Building bridges through language and culture — Mandela continued
Read moreIn the last post, we saw the importance of Nelson Mandela’s ability to interact with Afrikaners in their own language, something he learned to do during his long imprisonment. Speaking to them in their language was a way of gaining their respect, an act of winning them over and entering into their world, which led to deeper levels of communication and understanding.
How Nelson Mandela used language to build a nation
Read moreA moving scene from the movie Invictus portrays a tense conversation between President Nelson Mandela and Jason Tshabalala, his intense security chief. At issue is Mandela’s decision to employ some of the highly qualified white bodyguards trained under his predecessor during the brutal apartheid regime. On the morning when the white men report to take up their duties with the new regime,