Insights

Frank Blake, the beloved former CEO of Home Depot, credits the company’s core value of “Entrepreneurial Spirit” as the secret behind its success year after year, even during tough economic times. According to Blake, Home Depot's founders wanted their team members to think and behave like their name was on the front of the building. When employees aren't afraid to take risks, they grow. Many successful organizations, from Home Depot to Amazon to Starbucks have fueled their gro

The metaphor of the dance floor and the balcony was made popular by Harvard professor Ronald Heifetz as part of his work on adaptive leadership. In this metaphor, the "balcony" represents the vantage point from which leaders can gain perspective, observe the bigger picture, and reflect on the overall dynamics of the situation. In an era of rapid and unpredictable change, leaders need to be able to both stay in the game as well as pull themselves to a level above from time to

When I ask this question, the response I get most frequently is, “Oh yes, our company offers all sorts of training and development opportunities. We are continuously investing in the professional development of our staff.” While these actions and intentions are great, this response in itself is a limited if not an inaccurate definition of what a learning organization is. Professor and author Peter Senge first introduced this concept in his book “ The Fifth Discipline ”. Accor

The phrase "culture eats strategy for breakfast" is often attributed to the management guru Peter Drucker, and it suggests that an organization's culture is more powerful than its strategy in determining its success or failure. However, the idea can also be applied to organizational structure. An organization's culture can have a greater influence on how the organization operates than its formal structure. This means that, even if an organization has a well-designed structure

Everyone feels a certain way about emotions. Some people fully subscribe to them and describe themselves as being emotional beings. Others may go to the opposite side of the spectrum and believe they’re just “not emotional.” We usually tend to think of emotions as being good or bad, positive emotions and negative ones. We know we like to feel “happy” and “joyful,” which we usually classify as positive emotions, while we don’t usually like feeling “anxious” or “angry,” which w

A company’s culture is its soul. It is what gives the company its life and shapes the experiences people have within and with the organization. But can culture be architected? Can it be changed? To answer these questions, let us look at the example of a client of ours which is a multimillion-dollar global corporation. A few years back, they decided to expand their business into complementary markets. To support this decision, they acquired another large business. The CEO of

I was recently in conversation with a former client of mine who had left his previous employer after 15 years with the company. While there were a number of factors behind his decision to leave, one that stood out for me was when he shared that he had no longer felt appreciated at his last company. He had been burning the midnight oil for months on end to get a critical initiative completed for the company and did not even get a simple thank you from the senior management. I

The word “Conflict” can make many people uncomfortable (squirmish even). And that is understandable! In our society, the word conflict comes with a lot of negative connotations. It is what we have been conditioned to avoid versus embrace. However, conflict, and specifically productive conflict, is a very healthy part of team development. Teams who engage in productive conflict, far out-perform those that avoid all types of conflict, at all costs. This was especially highlight

Life as we knew it pre-pandemic has been completely flipped over its head. Our routines and structures have been dismantled. The pace of change and disruption that our communities, organizations and we as individuals have experienced over the past decade is unprecedented. And the thing about change is that even when it is positive, it involves loss. This is more so the case when the change is disruptive, unexpected, or worse unwanted. When we let change overwhelm us, its st