If No-One Is Listening, Are You Really Saying Anything?: Why Communication Strategies Rarely Work. Everyone knows that you need a communication strategy when introducing any large-scale change in an organisation. If you ask the Senior Executive, they will say that there is a communication strategy in place. If you ask the Change Project [...]
My new favourite word...Multipotentialite It describes me to a T. I always envied people who found their passion and unwaveringly followed it in its various forms throughout life. I wanted to be like people who have a hobby that they mastered over years of dedication. "Find your passion" we are told, and you will [...]
Last week I had a conversation with a female public servant who is working in a police agency in Australia. She had contacted me to discuss tips on preparing for a new role she was about to move into. Clearly a high performer and motivated to achieve and was being smart about taking the [...]
Most senior leaders have post-graduate qualifications, either a general MBA or a more profession-specific one such as a Masters in Police Leadership. Most of these post graduate degrees contain electives on change management, innovation, and leading people. Yet the ability of senior police managers to deliver the lessons learned from these courses seems to [...]
As so often is the case in research in the social sciences, a statement that is repeated often enough becomes the standard go-to evidence for a phenomenon. One of these is the myth that 70% of organisational change efforts fail. As Heather Stagl reported in 2014 the genesis of this statistic came out of [...]
An inevitable consequence of organisational change is the need to evaluate roles and positions ultimately leading to some staff experiencing significant change to their role, re-deployment to another division, or redundancy. Some people will jump on board the process, others will be fearful and others will be resistant. Communicating with people who are struggling [...]
Evaluation often plays second fiddle to project implementation yet good project management should start with evaluation in mind because without knowing whether you have made a positive difference in moving from A to B you cannot possible know what step C should be. Evaluating organisational wide change projects is probably one of the more [...]
I recently attended an AIM Breakfast where the presentation from the guest speaker was about addressing dysfunction in teams. Specifically, he discussed Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions Model which identifies five (surprise) distinct issues that form an interrelated model of dysfunction. These are: Absence of TRUST Fear of CONFLICT Lack of COMMITMENT Avoidance of ACCOUNTABILITY Inattention [...]
When you first step up into a leadership role such as team supervisor, unit manager or practice manager it can be challenging to find your own style of leadership. This is particularly challenging if you have been promoted up from the team which you are now supervising. In an endeavour to not be the [...]
I have just realised that I have been under-managed most of my career. Now to be fair I was the type of employee that desired autonomy, was self-directed and could be a little isolationist and possibly a little intimidating to tackle head on (so I have been told though, I find that hard to [...]
