The Leadership Qualities of Positivity and Optimism
Some time ago I was coaching a very senior director in Russia and about a year after we began, their company invited a well-known international consultancy to conduct a leadership potential assessment on the top fifty or so executives, of which they were one. Although we recognized some of the findings from the results of the questionnaire, there was one …
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The rediscovery of peer-to-peer expat support
Recently I’ve come across a number of articles heralding peer-to-peer support as a new concept in the management of global talent mobility. The articles suggest the challenges of relocating and settling abroad, from administrative and official tasks through to cultural differences and establishing a new social network and friends, can be significantly reduced through peer-to-peer support with expats who have …
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Factors in choosing a new location for a shared service centre
One of the interesting aspects of being involved with shared service centres is the choice of location for a new one. This happened a few times when I was Vice-President for Strategy & HR for Shell’s global business service network and, although it wasn’t the original plan, since then I’ve also been part of location discussions in Russia and Kazakhstan. …
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The dangers of benchmarking
I have written earlier about benchmarking in connection with the talent management project at the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA were interested to learn what other similar technological companies did in regards to talent management. As I wrote at the time though, the importance of benchmarking and finding out what others have or do in practice can be interesting, but …
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Identifying quick wins
One of the executives I am coaching in Russia has recently helped set up a new department on Sustainable Development. This is a new area for him (his background is commercial) and also for the chemical company for which he works. Consequently there are many different ideas from many people in the company about the types of ‘sustainable development’ projects …
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The Marathon Effect
I’ve mentioned William Bridges, his methods of change and transition management and some of his tools in a couple of earlier blogs.* I was certified by him in the use of his material early in my change management career and have used and re-used his concepts in many change programmes. I am also proud to have one of my examples …
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The Transition or Change Curve
During a set of change management workshops that I designed for people in different national Kazakh companies who were involved in ‘Transformation’ a couple of years ago, I used to ask who had heard of the Transition or Change Curve. And in any group of twenty-plus people only two or three hands would raise. And one of them was mine! …
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Open Space
There is one organizational development process that I have used occasionally and really wish I had been able to apply more often in my career: Open Space Technology. And why have I not been able to use it more? Well, Open Space is not for the faint hearted. Most business leaders like at least a little bit of control and …
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GAPS
I wrote in my introduction to this series of blogs about them ‘containing my ideas, thoughts, observations and helpful tools, based on my experience’. GAPS is one of those incredibly helpful tools. In the late 90s and early-to-mid Noughties when I was at Shell, I did a lot of work with the PDI consultancy, Personnel Decisions International. We were introducing …
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External or Internal Executive Coaching?
It seems that at almost every Russian or Kazakh company for which I work, I end up helping them design their Executive Coaching programme and process. I am of course more than happy to help. It’s pleasing to see Executive Coaching becoming more acceptable and mainstream, in itself a relatively new development in this part of the world. Nevertheless all …
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