Alicia McKay

Based in Wellington, New Zealand. Writes on strategy, change, leadership, consulting, public sector and local government.

2 min read

How to think about change

If you’re not doing ‘change’ right now, you’re not in fashion. Whether it’s organisational change, personal transformation (hi Spring!) or even...

4 min read

Before you restructure, read this

In a client mentoring session on Friday, I was looking forward to hearing how a job interview had gone. After an extended secondment and a long...

1 min read

How to stop being a plastic bag

American Beauty is one of my favourite movies. In one memorable scene, we watch Ricky’s video of an empty, wrinkled plastic bag tossed about in the...

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Freshen Up Your Focus

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that priorities shift. As we returned to our homes, spent more time with our families, watched our health more...

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How to live your values

I’ve had an absolute sh*t of a few weeks. I’ve made some of the hardest choices I’ve ever had to make in my personal life, in the face of confusion,...

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Just Keep Going

It’s hard to stick to new stuff. We sign up to new things all the time – fitness regimes, ideas, podcasts, committees – and the initial burst of...

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Commit or Quit

Do you ever sit in a conversation where everybody furiously agrees, leave feeling great about what you’ve decided – but then nothing happens? I see...

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How to Tame Talkfests: Focus prompts for frustrated facilitators

Man, I get sick of people talking sh*t. To be fair, it’s an occupational hazard. I run strategy and leadership workshops, where people are used to...

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How to Find your Purpose: 7 questions from Mark Manson

Purpose gets a bad rap. It’s the domain of the out-of-touch woke millennials who spend more time thinking about working than actually doing it… wants...

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How to make people listen

When people ask me to help them run workshops and meetings, they often come in with lofty goals. How do I get people to really be in this? To own...

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Stop being a hero

Heroes overcome odds. We need to change the odds. I used to think I was a bit of a hero. I was proud of it, even. Beating the odds, I shifted my life...

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Public Sector Leadership in Quiet Times: Readiness

I wrote a Wednesday Wisdom last week, that I had to do an emergency withdrawal for on Tuesday night, after the Prime Minister’s COVID announcement. I...

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Beware the Lure of the New: Sustainable Change

It’s been a hell of a few months. We’ve had to adapt fast, as the world around us has gone mad. For many of us, it hasn’t been all bad. COVID has...

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Good decisions

When COVID hit, many of us experienced – and are still experiencing – serious financial uncertainty. Businesses lost revenue, people lost jobs, and...

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Friends at work.

I often meet leaders with an “I don’t go to work to make friends” kind of attitude. I get that, I really do. One of the reasons I’ve never lasted in...

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First things first: be careful of second-rate priorities

It’s school holidays! My girls and I had a trip to Germany planned for these school holidays, but we had to cancel that for obvious reasons. Instead,...

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Thinking needs space.

I’m off the grid this week, holed up in an adorable little cabin in Martinborough, finishing up my second book From Action to Impact: The Strategic...

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On micro-influence.

Influencer marketing is the most popular guerrilla marketing strategy of the last ten years. In 2018, 81% of marketers reported that influencer...

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Act as if: how your identity changes your habits

Goals motivate us When I started running, I could only motivate myself to train if I had an event coming up. I started at a 5K, and a few years...

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Leverage as Less

Leverage: is it about doing more - or doing better? Doing everything with nothing I love the idea of ephemeralization, the brainchild of clever...

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Risky business.

Injuries suck. I hurt my right shoulder this week, and it turns out I’m a terrible patient. I don’t rest well – not just because of my personality,...

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Nothing Important Happens by Accident: Align priorities to action

If I looked at your calendar for the week – could I tell what really matters to you? If I looked at your team and decision process - could I tell...

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The invisible list.

My middle child is a bit of a sage. Since she was little, she’s had a habit of saying profound things that make you look at her sideways. In the way...

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The New Zealand way.

Sometimes we don’t really see ourselves, until we look through the eyes of others. Aotearoa has had unprecedented attention on the world stage over...