Category: New In Leadership

In the past couple of months, I’ve been privileged to interview a number of high-profile people about different aspects of global leadership. Some of these interviews took me to London, which I love visiting, but hated living there. (I couldn’t stand the long, dark months from about October to May.) But seeing London as a tourist is […]

Technological innovation is accelerating, and putting pressure on businesses to adapt faster, embrace the new, shed the old, disrupt or be disrupted … Blink. Did you miss something? In an exponentially interconnected world, the revolution is constant and it’s nigh on impossible to measure the pace or scope of change. No Ordinary Disruption, the recent book by McKinsey Global Institute’s Richard Dobbs, James […]

Millennials are in demand with their skill set a popular choice for employers on a global scale. A generation motivated by passion more than money, their affordability, energy and eagerness to please makes them attractive to companies, reports global talent firm Mercer. Add in being digital savvy, having an entrepreneurial spirit and a commitment to […]

I hate the way we have cynically reduced the naturally sociable instincts of human beings (we evolved as herd animals, after all) to a bloodless skill or – worse – a KPI. I have never in my life “networked”, but I will happily have a chat with just about anyone. Which brings me to another thing […]

High-speed rail (HSR) has been the subject of debate in Australia for decades. Why are we so slow to leave the station? An Australian HSR network High-speed rail carves an intricate grid across places such as Europe, China and Japan, where the first Shinkansen bullet train shot out of a Tokyo station more than 50 […]

Being able to network is a crucial part of a leader’s job, so how do you do it effectively? BY FIONA SMITH   When the former chief executive of clothing retailer Best & Less, Holly Kramer, wanted to launch her board career, she made a spreadsheet to map out everyone she knew who could help her get […]

A lot can happen in a workplace in a year. People join, people leave and whole businesses can be restructured. But when those big changes happen, employees who are absent on parental leave are often an afterthought. Quite a few managers have tripped up by denying these parents their legislated rights when their jobs are […]

Australian salaries aren’t going anywhere fast. In its latest figures, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) says the nation’s wages grew by just 2.2 per cent in 2015, the lowest rate of growth since it started publishing these numbers in 1998. The IML 2016 National Salary Survey confirms that people’s pay packets haven’t put on […]

Despite my nerves, the day went well and I returned home rather pleased with myself. The workshop had made a positive impact – of that I was sure. Indeed, the feedback forms were filled with praise. I was positive they’d use my services again. Then I didn’t hear anything from them – for years. Perhaps, […]

The problem is the word “impact” tends to be intrinsically linked to size. Impact is only viewed positively when it’s big. In fact, big is often not enough. It needs to be bigger than big. It needs to be HUGE. A small impact is basically no impact. A tiny impact isn’t worth the paper it’s […]