A product failure. A damaging headline. An unexpected resignation. A concerned customer. A shift in the market. When this happens, are you a reactor or a creator? Reactors provide oxygen to the flames that come by their desk versus really listening to the clarion calls and whispers and executing the best response. Leadership rarely unfolds according to plan and I loved chapter 22 in Nitin Nohria’s book, The CEO, where he shares that even the most thoughtful leaders can fin

If culture fosters wisdom, then it fuels impact in the transformation economy. That was the thought I was left with after writing Part 1 where we explored the role organizational culture can play in creating the conditions for empathy, curiosity, lived experience and human judgement to turn knowledge into better choices, better decisions and, ultimately, better outcomes. Those reflections led me to dive more deeply into Joseph Pine’s writing on the Transformation Economy and

Something that has been keeping me up at night is with AI making knowledge more accessible to everyone, where does that leave the knowledge workers as we move from a knowledge economy to a transformation economy? That was my morning coffee discussion with my husband today and as I pulled in reflections from a recent masterclass I attended with Dr. Robin Blackstone at the Empathy Collective on How to Lead in the Age of AI. This masterclass left me with hope. Yes! Hope afte

In 2019, my husband and I bought a 300-year-old house in France with the idea that one day we would retire here and enjoy life in the countryside. It was a plan I had happily signed up for when we got married: sure one day, somewhere in the far-off future, we would retire in France. At the time, I had an interesting job with an organization whose mission I strongly believed in. Then COVID arrived. The following year, my husband retired, and what had once been a distant plan

In The CEO, Nitin Nohria distills three decades of research and interviews into a compelling exploration of the role, reality, and responsibility of leading an organization. As I worked through the book, I found myself returning to an early chapter focused on what may be a CEO's most precious and non-renewable resource: time. With research showing the average CEO works approximately 62.5 hours per week, competing demands can quickly consume available time. Nohria's message

Getting mission greedy encourages you, to hold onto your mission with maniacal focus by digging deep into your character, leaning into your traits and beliefs and values so that you achieve what's needed.

A compass will guide your mission, however whether you take the hard route to achieve your mission or compromise to an easier destination is up to your ability to be mission driven or mission hopeful. Image modified from Pexels J.Woroniecki. As I look around at our full, comfortable lives, I sometimes wonder if we are choosing our path wisely. Are we embracing the challenge required to attain our fullest potential and reach our intended destination with calm, confidence, and

France has long been a wonderful destination to experience by walking, whether in the city or countryside. Do you enjoy walking too? I find it to be a wonderful way to bring reflection into my day and I decided why not start sharing my walks with you? I often enjoy a good audiobook during my walk and catch myself noticing connections that provide opportunity to pause, reflect and take notes as content relates back to my work as a Culture Strategist. My new ritual is to sha

When leaders talk about productivity, the conversation often revolves around efficiency, output, and getting more done with less. This often means putting the squeeze on your people, adding undue pressure on your them and pushing them into a proverbial pickle – there is another solution with culture as a success strategy.

An organisation's ethos, its deeply held values, beliefs, and shared ways of working, provides a powerful lens through which decisions can be made.