Archive for 'Business' Category

Respecting our Mother Earth

Posted by Sharon 4 June 2010

Last night’s WakeUp Sydney event was a heart-expanding exploration of what it means to connect with our Mother Earth.  Jono Fisher  and the team did a fabulous job and I alternated between joy and sadness, compounded by reading an article on Natural Capitalism from the Harvard Business Review on the way to the event.  This […]

From ‘change’ towards ‘development’

Posted by Sharon 18 April 2010

A lovely snippet from Russell Ackoff’s Reflections 2002 article:
“Development is an increase in the desire and ability to satisfy one’s own needs and legitimate desires, and those of others“.
This definition supports my quest to move beyond the concept of leadership and behaviour change.  Changing behaviour is problematic because there is usually a positive intention behind […]

Design Thinking

Posted by Sharon 19 March 2010

Courtesy of AFR BOSS and UTS, I enjoyed hearing Roger Martin - Dean of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management  - talk about design thinking yesterday.  I especially liked hearing his experiences as a consultant with business managers and their reliability focus.  It seems that the killer question that is asked of any new innovative recommendation […]

Bill Gates starts the ‘Innovate to Zero’ party

Posted by Sharon 19 February 2010

Thanks to Remo Guiffre from my favourite online shop REMO, for conneting me to Bill Gates’ latest TED Talk.
Bill believes that climate is even important than “vaccines and seeds” and is challenging us to “innovate to Zero” emissions.  I love that he is using a positive word like innovate - rather than a call to […]

Grow, develop, change …what’s in a word?

Posted by Sharon 9 August 2009

For a while now I have been testing the word “grow” as an alternative to “change”.  I know I have an aversion to being asked to “change” and even the phrase “I want to change the behaviour of my people” indicates that change is forced choice.
Contrast this with the phrase “I want to grow the […]

Do we really need abundance?

Posted by Sharon 29 July 2009

A good take on the abundance vs sufficiency dilemma from writer and personal life coach Bruce Elkin here.
I agree with a lot of his sentiments and am working to ensure that we reduce our family and company footprint from its current level of 2.4 planets to something approaching 1.
It’s hard to avoid the lure of […]

Work life flexibility - a useful business strategy

Posted by Sharon 13 June 2009

A Fast Company leadership article about CFO views of work life flexibility strategies is yet another example of the knowing - doing gap. Yost’s study of CFO perspectives confirms that American CFOs recognise the business potential of work life balance, yet few of the American companies surveyed have formal policies, or their use is constrained […]

Meaning is the most powerful motivator

Posted by Sharon 14 April 2009

According to author Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneurs don’t ask themselves “Do I want to make money and gain power and prestige?”,  rather they ask  “Do I  want to make meaning?”, or typically “do I want to make a positive difference in this world?”
Kawasaki credits meaning with being the most powerful motivator in the world and I […]

Bring on the Year of the CFO

Posted by Sharon 5 December 2008

A consultant colleague sent a group of us a provocative article from the Economist - titled “The Year of the CFO” which proclaimed that EQ, Talent Management and Corporate Social Responsibility are “dead” in 2009 and financial management, economic value add and execution will be business priorities.
My response to this provocation is as follows:
“This is […]