Set your vision, believe in your destiny, and get moving.
Don’t fret the how. Have a basic strategy and get moving. Let it evolve as you act and learn.
Do what feels right to you today, in pursuit of your vision. Keep going, become obsessive. Let your actions drive up your passion. Allow contagion to thrive.
Always be busy, always be true.
And let the sparks fly.
Are you turning your vision into reality?
Before you go, take a look at Seizing the Opportunity to understand more about where I am coming from.
Read MoreThe Road to Self-Reliance
According to Adlerian Psychology, the journey from childhood to adulthood is the path to self-reliance. If you do not have a high degree of self-reliance, have you honestly achieved maturity?
Children are reliant on others. Very young children, heavily dependent. Older children, much less so. Yet, even as we mature and drive forward in the grown-up world, the habits of dependence linger. To a large extent, because it is convenient to the powers that be, who have constructed a society of dependency.
Dependency is a balance of power, with one party under the control of the other, to a certain degree. Read More
Seven Rules to Leverage Your MBA
As the proud holder of an MBA, are you happy with the return you are making on it?
You probably spent a huge amount of time and energy on your studies. Not to mention, blood, sweat and tears. If, like me, you also had a full-time job, and a family, you will have worked late into the night, and over the weekends, reading all those papers and completing the assignments.
The early joy and pride of attaining the award soon fades and the reality begins to bite – was it worth it? Read More
Funambulism for Life
Setting your vision for a new life or career is mission critical and often quite hard to do.
Yet, even when the vision is clear, actually making substantial progress is somewhat tricky, often because people lack the skills of mental and emotional funambulism - or tightrope walking.
I've found this in my own life and career. Get an exciting vision, get all revved up and taking action, yet somehow, the old life, the old way of being, keeps you anchored to yesterday. Read More
Oomph
Oomph is an interesting word.
To me, it means people have something about them, some special quality that gets them noticed, that creates a huge impact.
They have energy, dynamism, determination to get done what they need to get done.
They have that definiteness, a purpose that they really know what they're driving for, and they're willing to back everything, to put everything on achieving that objective. Read More
The Need for Political Curiosity
Most people hate the politics. Bizarre but true.
If you want examples, take a look at the first article linked at the foot of this article.
Which is a bit of a problem, because if this is true for you, you will shy away from this essential phenomena in organisational cultures.
Ringing any bells with you? Read on. Read More
Fire! Fire! Controlling the Unseen Threat to Organisational Survival
Within many organisations, there is a fire burning, out of control, and out of sight. Those who can see it are impotent to do anything. They watch with growing despair, or simply jump ship.
The threats to organisational success today are big, very big. Technology, AI, competition, Brexit, regulation, trade barriers, wars. It’s a long list.
But don’t be fooled. Read More
The Influential Executive: Nine Critical Capabilities
To get to the top you have to be good at your job. You also have to be extremely good at influence, especially if you work in a competitive environment where egos, personal agendas and politics are rife.
Over the last 15 years I have helped hundreds of senior people make it to the top in large organisations. They have risen above the norm, moved faster than average, and developed an unusual sense of security.
Here are the nine capabilities that enabled them to distinguish themselves, and become extraordinarily successful – and they are not what you will learn in business school, or on the majority of leadership development programmes.
Read More
The Politics of Performance Reviews
Vijay wanted to talk urgently because of his upcoming performance review.
He was getting pretty anxious and wound up about it, not least because the CEO would be attending, as he does for all senior level reviews.
So far, none had gone well. In fact, most people had been torn apart. This CEO has form.
Here’s a summary of the situation Vijay shared with me at the beginning of our call last Wednesday evening.
Read More
Political Capital: Igniting Cognitive Readiness and Strategic Agility
Cognitive Readiness is one of the hottest topics uncovered by the Trends in Executive Development Report (2016)[1]. Why? Probably because they also found that the persistent development priority is the “ability to create a vision and engage people around it.” In the survey, 31.5% believed this to be the competency most lacking in next generation leaders. Read More