A feature of the wonderful Aussie blue’s artist, Lloyd Spiegal’s music is the lyrics.  Many of his tunes really that hit me in the feels.  One example is “The man I was.”  Hard to listen to without feeling a little choked up.  The key lyric here “The man that I was killed the man that

The “People and Culture” piece at work influences traction in a quite specific way. It is the difference between walking along a clear, well-maintained path or on soft sand, or wading through water. You can still get there, is it

The Australian HR Institute published findings from the Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey last week. It tracks the happiness of leaders — and it isn’t telling a good story.  There is an unbroken, ten-year decline. A decade of consistent, measurable deterioration in the felt wellbeing of

We tell our friends “Mental health matters” and “don’t be afraid to ask for help.”   We mean it. We watch elite athletes work with coaches, sports psychologists, nutritionists — whole teams dedicated to marginal gains — and we think: of course,

Case Study #01 — J___ Director, Professional Services Firm  The first thing J___ told me was that life felt like there were “too many balls in the air — spread too thin, not operating at my best.”  Fair call, as a director of

Interesting chat this week. To an open question about leadership problems that drain energy and drag on team performance, the reply came back: “Generally, I find it’s staff who do that — I fire them and get better people.” I

Size doesn’t matter – Climate and The Fisherman’s dilemma Last week I wrote about the Fisherman’s dilemma. How acting in self-interest is self-defeating. Let’s apply it to something real, large, and present — climate change policy. Specifically, one of the

Panic buying fuel? Toilet paper? Why? Why do people do it? We know why. It is obvious why. I’m surprised it is surprising. It is in their self-interest to do so. It is — by any reasonable definition — the

There’s a moment we all know too well. Someone says something—your mother-in-law, your uncle, that colleague—and you feel an argument loading. You’re tired, they’re tired, there is pressure, everyone’s dialled up, and you’re about to say the thing you’ll regret.

A client of mine, a Senior Manager in a national corporate role, often comes away from meetings with the sense that some participants are almost deliberately undermining the outcome. You know the feeling – someone keeps raising objections, poking holes,

We get the urge to fill conversational gaps with something—anything—and often resort to asking for, or worse, offering our own facts. Facts usually kill conversations. Feelings, enquiries, and stories sustain them. The fix? Shift from facts to their experience. You

We’ve all got important projects that drift. The exercise program that starts “next week.” The business strategy that needs “just a bit more thinking.” The difficult conversation we’ll have “when the time is right.” Your brain isn’t sabotaging you—it’s doing

Want less stress? Try these on for size. Two related concepts that work together to help improve your days – even the bad ones. Both attributed to Seneca and the Stoic tradition. The First: “We suffer more often in imagination

The best leaders, colleagues, and most trusted friends tend to share one trait: they’re genuinely happy in themselves. When people are emotionally self-aware, coherent, and resilient, everything improves. Workplace engagement rises. Psychosocial safety risks drop. Leadership divisions heal. Teams solve

Courage requires fear. One of the activities I get my one-one coaching clients to do is to nudge them just a little out of their comfort zone. For example, what could happen “If I bring five percent more awareness to