behaviour

/Tag:behaviour

Behaviours at Year End Break Up Parties!

Most organisations have some sort of "year end" breakup party just preceding the holiday season of their culture. A celebration of what has been achieved and what there is to look forward to in the following year.  These are the absolute best times to understand the REAL culture of your organisation.  As an example, over the next few days many organisations around the world will be breaking up for Christmas where there will be ample flow of alcohol and consequently...

The cycles of life: A metaphorical tradition

Many countries celebrate a “Festive season break up” in December or January/February. It may be the financial cycles of the organisation, the tradition of Christmas or Chinese New Year or any of a range of other natural cycles. I sometimes wonder whether we celebrate surviving another cycle or we are celebrating the beginning of the next cycle. We even count the cycles in terms of our age, they year of the XYZ, anniversaries, the decade of ABC, person of the...

Enhancing Professional Coaching with Metaphor

Performance is a big focus of professional coaching and behaviour is a big part of performance. A concept that stimulates a reflective dialogue about the impact of behaviour on performance is a useful interaction, providing it is done in a constructive manner. In coaching, there are a number of ways which metaphor can be used as it provides a creative mechanism to trigger novel ways to assess who we are and why we act the way we do. Behaviour has a...

Leadership in Action? No – just Leadership Inaction

The recollections from my last post created another thought about a story I shared at the power of place session at the International Leadership Association global conference. It highlighted the difficulties the Australian aboriginal peoples encountered with the arrival of the English settlers. My early childhood in “the outback” was a time when aboriginals were treated as second class citizens (and unfortunately still are by some). As a naïve child I could not understand why my dark skinned friends with...

From Lead Gunners to Gun Leaders

In Australia the slang term “Gunner” is a derogatory term for someone who is always shooting off ideas but rarely does anything about them. It comes from their constant verbal shots of “I am gunner do this and they are gunner do that…”. The lead gunner wants to look good by spruiking ideas, but knows that attempting delivery of their “great idea” is a risk. It requires action and capability they are not confident about, so they have handy a...

Boundary riders for creative innovation

Boundary Spanning Leadership, a book by Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason from the Center for Creative Leadership was released last week has been an immediate success. It is in fact, a good example of its own philosophies in that it draws on a wide range of ideas from many contexts to support the research on which it is based. It also leverages the impressive networks into which the CCL authors have within their circles of influence to promote the ideas...

The intersection of thoughts: Attendee or Participant?

This week represented a unique intersection of experiences for me. I am on a speaking tour of east coast USA for three weeks and it is 5 AM on Sunday morning in Boston. No, not jetlag - my mind is wide awake and bursting with ideas. For the last four days I have been attending the International Leadership Association (ILA) conference and heard a wide range of ideas about what leadership should be and how leaders how leaders need to...

Reflective Metaphor Model for Performance

I have been developing a new model to enhance performance through an action research program. It combines reflective practice, conversations that matter, behavioural metaphor and assessments of impacts on (largely intangible) performance outcomes. Application of the new model (illustrated) is highlighting the power of combining these concepts into an ongoing capability development cycle. By adapting the behaviours required at each stage of the cycle, the individual or team can align thinking to desired outcomes (such as impact on stakeholders and...

Behavioural Based Leadership

Leadership is behavioural - not a position! The person at the top of an organisation may be a poor leader.  They may occupy the top job and command decisions, but this does not mean they are a GOOD leader.  A real leader is a person who has WILLING followers.  People want to help them because they are inspired by them and respect them as a person. To become a leader of great standing requires a history of proven performance where your stewardship and demonstrated...

Combining Metaphors to enhance effect and performance

The use of animals as metaphors for behaviours was covered in The Organizational Zoo as well as some other places.  Sports metaphors also have been widely used for business teams.  I have for some time played with the combination of the two to generate an understanding of the relationship between behaviour and a team role. Belbin's research built an understanding of how different teams benefit from acknowledging that a diversity of roles is required to optimise outcomes.  My own interactions have been experimenting with...

The Park Ranger and the Leading Lion

Collaborative employee A We are between a rock and a hard place, they will not change their plans and we cannot force them to. I honestly believe this training proposal is necessary for the program be successful, but they simply won’t resource it. Collaborative employee A’s manager I'm almost to the point of saying "to hell with it - let them rot", but I know that isn't the answer. If they persist then we need to be prepared to assist when the...

Conversations that Matter

Constructive conversations are the single most powerful way to engage people and make a difference for those you interact with. It is a pity that many people underestimate the power of the conversation. Everyone engages in conversations, but only a small percentage know how to create the right environment for "Conversations that Matter". Effective conversations that matter follow a simple structure defined around understanding what you are trying to achieve and four fundamental focus areas: Outputs, Outcomes, Benefits and Beneficiaries. For example, brainstorming, making a decision and authorising actions are all...

Where did 2 years disappear to? Free profiler

I ambitiously started this blog two years ago and had not revisited it again until now? How does that happen? When I was young I had an anonymous quote on my wall "There must be something to reincarnation - it is hard to believe I could get this far behind in only one lifetime". Time is a resource that is difficult to manage. We all get the same amount of it each day and yet for some it is not...