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Lessons from a Friend
In the middle of November, on a gentle grey day, just as the old year was starting to tire and fray, one of my dearest friends, Gregor Grant, died. In the long weeks since, there have been bouquets of words thrown down by the many people who loved him, lavishing praise on a wonderful artist, musician, lawyer and, above all, on a man who was curious, funny, generous and loving beyond measure. I have read and listened to everything I can lay my hands on. I have googled his name in hopes of finding more. But so far, I have not added any words of my own. Gregor was a…
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Great, make one!
You know those pictures that circulate online of baking disasters? One went viral just recently, showing a horse cake that someone had made to mark the Queen’s funeral. Those pictures always make me sort of laugh-gasp-sob. I think perhaps grip us in the same way that true crime grips us; namely, with that vertiginous sense of ‘oh my goodness, that could so easily be me’. We all know what it is to have so perfectly conceived of an idea, a flawless, shining star in our imagination. The perfect cake, the perfect holiday, the perfect relationship, the perfect presentation, the perfect business strategy. And we all know what it feels like,…
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This Ramshackle House
I talk a lot about what it takes on a personal level to be a good and resourceful leader. About the disciplines and practices that we should pay attention to and build for ourselves to ensure that we remain resourceful and healthy – the importance of rest and sleep and rejuvenation, of reflective practices, of eating well and exercising. Blah blah blah. I wang on constantly about books to read and new tools and techniques to try. And yet, in all of that, I don’t think I’ve mentioned even once my most tried-and-tested go-to remedy that I do in real-life-actual-fact seek out without fail whenever I have something gnarly to…
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What I read on my holidays
When I was a kid, my nickname in my family was Johnny Number 5, after the robot in the 1988 movie Short Circuit who could read a book in seconds. My earliest memories are of the revolving door, beeswaxed floor and orange plastic chairs of my local library. My idea of the best possible day out was when I could persuade my dad to take me to James Thin in Edinburgh, where I’d lose myself scouring the shelves, and emerge hungry and dizzy hours later, surprised to return to the real world. All of which is to say, I really love reading. Mostly these days, though, my passion is quite contained and restrained. Reading happens on…
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China in your hand – five lessons in gratitude
'Don't push too far your dreams are china in your hand....' sang Carol Decker of T'Pau in 1987, and I've been pushing to far ever since. But this year a very different sort of china in my hand has deepened my gratitude practice and helped me to understand how a bit of grounding in the present is exactly what our wild dreams need ...
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Business writing, Humanising business, Leadership, Organisational change, Personal Reflections, Storytelling
Did you imagine it would be this way forever?
I’ve confessed before that for someone who is making a career out of helping organisations to change, I don’t half make heavy weather of it sometimes in my own life. I love the present hard, while taxing it with all my anxiety around the future to come. I’m like my littlest boy who loves holidays so much that he starts fretting from day two about how sad he’ll feel when it’s over. Years and years ago, when our children were babies and dark winter afternoons felt interminable and hair-tearingly boring, even as everyone told us to treasure them, a dear friend gave me the simplest, most game-changing gift. She used…
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Sometimes I don’t even know the question
We all know the experience of being around someone who doesn’t ask any questions. In some social circumstances, it can be an introvert’s dream scenario – I have lost count of the number of drinks parties, dinners, wedding receptions I’ve been to where I’ve been able to hide in plain sight – just ask a couple of questions of the right people, and they’re off, and you’re home and dry. Not asking questions is more common than you might think. It’s not necessarily because someone is full of their own sense of importance or their own narrative – though I read somewhere that on average we spend 80% of our…
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Business writing, Confidence, Humanising business, Leadership, Personal Reflections, Purpose, Uncategorised
Leaving things half done
Where I grew up, you worked hard. You cleared your plate. A hard day was a good day. Sick days were for wimps, lay-ins for layabouts. If you were banging your head against a brick wall and it wasn’t working, you just needed to bang a wee bit harder, a wee bit longer. I am about to leave a job that I have loved and have worked very hard at. In leaving, I’m going to be leaving a whole heap of things undone, and of the many things that are hard about this transition season, it’s perhaps this that I have wrestled with most. I would like to have somehow…
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Business writing, Humanising business, Leadership, Organisational change, Personal Reflections, Uncategorised
Rethinking Energy
Of all of the themes in the book that I’ve had cause to think longest and hardest about this past year, it’s the theme of energy.Everywhere I turn, I encounter leaders who are overwhelmed and exhausted. In the UK at least, this seems even more acute as things start to feel objectively a little better – I suspect because we’re out of adrenalin and crisis mode, some numbness is wearing off, and the reckoning of all that we’ve been through is beginning. I speak to leaders who feel that they are too thinly spread, and have been for a long time. They have violated so many of their own boundaries…
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Rethinking Simplicity
Blue anemones in a glass vase. A clear diary. A perfect story. A clear decision made. Do you find yourself craving simplicity in what feels like an airless and cluttered world? Does your brain feel foggy? This week's blog is a cri de coeur for simplicity. Simplicity of message, simplicity of information, simplicity in structure, in decision-making, and in getting stuff done. Simplicity in rules and, perhaps above all, simplicity of expectation. Organisations and leaders that can bring simplicity are giving their people the gift of enabling them to focus on what truly matters, and the gift of freedom from being entangled in clutter. But why is that so hard…
