Professor Herminia Ibarra has coined a new word: outsight. She says it's the opposite of insight, which she defines as "the flash of knowledge that comes on inside." Outsight, then, "is the external perspective you get from doing new and different things with new and different people. It helps you see your role differently, it […]
They say you can’t choose your family – you just have to try to get along. And we all know the affronts, compromises and negotiations that are part and parcel of normal family life. The same could be said of office life. While some people do have a say in who becomes a colleague, most […]
All Posts, Career Skills, Communication, Expert Interview, Leadership, Stress, Team Management
What’s the difference between managers and leaders? It’s one of those questions you might expect to answer if you’re sitting an end-of-year business-studies exam in high school. I’m sure I had to do an assignment at college on this very subject. I probably wrote about how a manager is an organizer, who makes day-to-day decisions […]
Stop and think about some of the incredible innovations we rely on today. Most of these products were invented decades ago and are now such a part of our society that we don't even think about the innovation behind them. But we'd find it hard to function without them. For instance, consider electronic communication. Before […]
I knew it was going to hurt as soon as the car pulled out across my path. The only questions in my mind were: how much would it hurt, and how expensive would it be to repair my beautiful, brand new Ducati motorcycle? The second question suddenly seemed less important as the situation I was […]
Very few of us would admit it, but we are all biased. Research shows that all of us are naturally drawn toward people like ourselves and are more loyal to them, which inevitably makes us biased in their favor. This kind of in-group versus out-group dynamic is not just based on how we look. According […]
Career Skills, Empowerment, Expert Interview, Leadership, Team Management
Authenticity is something I've become very interested in as my career has progressed. I loved being a news journalist for many years but towards the end of my last post, as a reporter on British politics, I began to realize my interest in that kind of work had waned. It no longer seemed in line […]
All Posts, Career Skills, Leadership, Strategy, Stress, Team Management
It's not often I find myself unable to put down a business book. But this was recently the case with "The Objective Leader," by Elizabeth Thornton, which starts with the gripping story of how the author raised and then lost a million dollars on a fruit-juice importing venture. That was 20 years ago, when Thornton […]
All Posts, Career Skills, Leadership, Strategy, Team Management
I've never been a leader of an organization and I've always shied away from management roles in my journalism career, preferring to stay "at the coal face." Nor have I ever been overly interested in management theory or the structure of organizations. But I am really interested in concepts like purpose and meaning, in the […]
All Posts, Career Skills, Leadership, Team Management, Time Management
Warning: You won't want to hear what I'm about to tell you. But hang with me, please. I'll make you feel much better about it and you'll be far more successful in your work. Ready? After publishing his book, "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us," Daniel Pink was curious and asked 7,000 workers […]
All Posts, Communication, Leadership, Problem Solving, Team Management
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