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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…
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Rethinking Understanding
Almost all of us have surely, over the past year, been sucked into the impossible game of ‘pandemic trumps’. Whose wifi is worst? Whose pet the most disruptive? Is it better to be locked down in the city or in the countryside? Alone or with small children? Who has looked enviously while perched on the end of their bed with a laptop at someone else’s spacious booklined study? Who has used the time to get in the best shape of their life, and who has a developed a packet-a-day biscuit habit? Who has thrived on the quiet solitude and who is tearing their hair out with loneliness? We will all…
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Agility, Business writing, Humanising business, Leadership, Organisational change, Personal Reflections, Purpose, Storytelling
Rethinking Agility
My fifteen year old son is a goalkeeper. During lockdown, his training has been via zoom calls and has involved setting up ludicrous obstacle courses across the living room, so that he can practise changing direction in a fraction of a second, or leaping from a standing start onto a high box. He is working on his agility – the first thing to go, apparently, if you don’t practise for a while. I wonder if some of that loss of agility is also creeping into our psyches, into how we lead, and into our organisations? At first blush, you’d think not. Haven’t we all been congratulating ourselves on how well…
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Business writing, Confidence, Humanising business, Leadership, Organisational change, Personal Reflections, Purpose, Storytelling, Women
Rethinking Confidence
Some days I don’t have the first idea what I’m doing. I eat cake for breakfast and shout at the children, and my hair looks crap. Some days I look at the length of my to do list, the unanswered emails, the state of my kitchen, and realise I am profoundly unqualified for the role of Living My Own Life....
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Business writing, Humanising business, Leadership, Organisational change, Personal Reflections, Purpose, Storytelling
Rethinking Evolution
I have two daughters, aged 12 and 10, who like to define themselves as pretty much polar opposites of each other (though in truth, they are perhaps more similar than either of them cares to admit.) One of the differences between them is that one loves to bake, and the other loves to cook. Baking Daughter loves to flick through recipe books on a Saturday morning, to find a glossy picture of something delicious. She’ll note down a list of everything she needs, take money and a shopping bag, walk to the shops, come home and lay out all the ingredients. She’ll pre-heat the oven, weigh and measure, whisk and…
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Business writing, Humanising business, Leadership, Organisational change, Personal Reflections, Purpose, Storytelling
Rethinking Belonging
For the first time in my life, I saw the truth … that Love, Meaning and Connection are the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire –Viktor Frankl The first big theme that my book focuses on as a source of both risk and opportunity during change is the idea of Belonging. The chapter in my book that tackles this theme, begins with an unequivocal research finding that still blows my mind– namely that the single biggest predictor of our health, happiness and longevity is our sense of connectedness to one another. This past year, we’ve all of us lived the truth of that, have we not? It’s…
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Herrings and peanuts
My year of huge change and what it has taught me – part three of a reflection in three parts. In this final part of a three part blog reflecting on my year of transition as a leader, I’d like to focus on understanding. Together with belonging and confidence, which I focused on in previous parts, understanding has proven to be one of the striking components of my BECAUSE model when applied to my own experience. In the chapter on Understanding in my book, I describe navigating my way around a Danish supermarket trying to buy what I need … The simultaneous delight and slightly terrified lostness that comes from…
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How’s business?
One of the questions that I most hated when each of my children was very little was, “Is (s)he a good baby?” Such a sweet and well intentioned question, really meaning something along the lines of, “Are you alright? Or has the arrival of this small person so turned your world around that you no longer know which way is up?” It was, I think now, really just a way of letting me know I was seen, that the boundaries of me hadn’t dissolved completely in the fog of milk and sleeplessness that so marks this period. But I never knew how to answer it. I didn’t have a baseline…
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I do, we do, you do, review …
Do you? Review? I never used to. You are inundated with requests, am I right? An email from Open Table: ‘How was Enoteca St Paul’s?’ Erm, fine thanks, I’d have said if it wasn’t, and besides, it was yesterday – already just a glimpse of a memory in the bottom of a dark stairwell. Swipe left and delete. A notification from Uber: ‘Thanks for riding with Estefan. Please rate your trip. Please leave a tip. Please pay Estefan a compliment.’ Swipe up and ignore. An email from Amazon Marketplace: “Jenni Emery, did White Marshmallows Bulk Buy – 1 kg bag meet your expectations?” Nnnnggg – perhaps I’ll reply when my mouth isn’t…
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Rethinking Understanding
Rethinking Belonging
An island in an ocean full of change
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Business writing, Humanising business, Leadership, Organisational change, Personal Reflections, Purpose, Storytelling
Two Monsters
When my eldest son was three years old, my brother bought him a book that had been one of his own favourites when he was younger. It’s a book called Two Monsters, by David McKee and it’s about, well, two monsters. The two monsters live on opposite sides of a mountain – one on the east side, and one on the west side. They have never met, but they can speak to each other through a hole in the mountain. One evening, the sky is beautiful, and one monster shouts to the other through the hole, ‘Look! Isn’t it beautiful! Day is departing.’ ‘Day departing?’ replies the other monster? ‘You…
