Posts Tagged ‘Creativity’
The Game You Should Take Up This Holiday Season
I’m the only person in my family who doesn’t play chess. They’re all chess freaks. Even my 9-year-old daughter is an enthusiast after her uncle taught her how to play last Christmas – and my usually ‘too cool for school’ teenage son has been known to drop Instagram for a chance to beat his dad…
Read MoreWhat Our Family Holiday Can Teach You About Constraints (and How to Overcome Them)
This week, my family flew all the way to Australia to visit one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World – only to be told that a tropical storm meant we couldn’t see it. Bummersville. The Great Barrier Reef shall forever be known in the McAlpine-Paulin household as “The Great Unseen Barrier Reef” or TGUBR for…
Read MoreShades of Grey (no, not the movie) – How to Cultivate Your Relationship With Ambiguity
Urban legend has it that in the mid 1960s, former FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover was reading a typed copy of a letter he’d just dictated to his aide. He didn’t like the way the letter had been formatted so he wrote on the bottom, “watch the borders” and asked the aide to retype the…
Read MorePlace Matters: How Your Work Space Influences Productivity, Creativity and Collaboration
I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. I don’t ACTUALLY have an office. Rather, I have work spaces I am drawn to depending on my mood and circumstances. And I’m a complete fan of the ‘no office office’. There’s my favourite café, Kush, where I can get the best Americano in town and soak…
Read MoreRuled by Rules? 7 Alternatives to ‘Death by Bureaucracy’
I’m a bit of a rebel when it comes to rules. Especially when they’re bloody stupid or defy common sense. Like the one I heard recently that forbade employees from bringing any pot plants to work. I mean, seriously…WTF?! Are we expecting an invasion of The Triffids any time soon? For the rule following junkies…
Read More7 Top Tips For Igniting Better Leadership
As the year draws to a close, I have been reflecting on the lessons I have learned this year. When it comes to leadership, I keep coming back to seven foundational principles. Whether it’s through my coaching practice, in researching in the subject or in my own bumbling experiences in being a manager, the same…
Read MoreWhat Leaders Can Learn From Baba Stiltz
Leadership lessons can come from the most unexpected places. My brother sent me the link to this clip a few days ago. It’s about a young, highly talented electronic music producer from Stockholm with a classical ballet background. Sound interesting? He is! There’s something about Baba Stiltz. Watch it and you’ll see what I mean… This…
Read MoreWhy ‘Curiosity Killed The Cat’ Is SUCH A Dumb Saying
This is one ditty we should ditch. The best leaders are curious leaders. Along with developing a penchant for active listening, learning to love the question is one of the most important skills leaders should cultivate. I’m talking curiosity about: The people they lead The market in which they operate Competitors Themselves (perhaps most of…
Read More4 Ways To Encourage Fun And Innovation At Work
You might think having a laugh has no place in the serious world of business. But, if innovation is on your strategic agenda (and it SO should be, by the way), you might want to rethink your perspective. We tend to take ourselves WAAAY too seriously. And, research on the link between fun workplace cultures…
Read MoreHow To Reconnect With Your Purpose
This week, I had to go away to ‘come home’. In other words, I had to leave my everyday life. My daily routine. My busy busyness. My must do’s, to do’s and should do’s. I needed to leave the ‘doing’ in order to rediscover the gift of ‘being’. This allowed me to reconnect with my purpose…
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