1 min read
Save your relationships with quality questions
Bad questions kill relationships. When we turn up to a meeting, conversation, or email powered by judgement and annoyance, our questions reflect...
2 min read
Big questions enable bold choices
Most meetings and workshops are a waste of time. They're full of people resolving trivial issues that could be handled by email or delegation with...
3 min read
How to stop AI from stealing your job
Have you been keeping up with new AI tools like MidJourney and ChatGPT?
2 min read
Master the world’s most valuable skill
Critical thinking is the world’s most valuable skill. Unfortunately, being overworked and overwhelmed keeps people from learning how to do it. They...
2 min read
Serve the room: questions to ask for leadership success
In local government, many elected members think they must be approachable and responsive to their constituents. They personally follow up on service...
2 min read
5 career mistakes everyone (from junior to executive) should avoid
A few years ago, I asked a group of public sector executives one simple question: “What are the biggest mistakes you've made in your career?”
2 min read
3 myths about decision-making
I've been interested in what it means to make good, long-term decisions for a long time. I entered a policy career fresh out of university, all fired...
2 min read
10 business and self-help books for your summer
Over the past 10 years, I reckon I've read over 500 self-development and business books. (That's why I instituted a three-month non-fiction ban in...
3 min read
Values-based living: The hardest and easiest path to peace
When I was 25, I left my job with two kids, a mortgage to pay, and a husband on apprentice wages. I'd left my policy job in frustration, looking for...
1 min read
The problem is never the problem
Picture this: you're frustrated with your partner. They've loaded the dishwasher wrong, again, and they've left the door wide open for you to knock...
4 min read
Business Planning in a Recession with Bright Spot Thinking
Earlier this week, I was working with leaders from a large corporate to set some strategic priorities. Talk quickly turned to how to survive the...
3 min read
Be Yourself to Beat Burnout
The Lion King was one of my favourite childhood movies. It was one of a few films that my cousins had on VHS and we would watch it on repeat, until...
3 min read
Work Towards The Grain
One of my coaching clients is an exceptional leader. She has a rare combination of strategic, systems-focused perspective along with a burning desire...
2 min read
Don't Be Afraid to Narrow Down
Little known fact: the more specific you are about what you want, what you'll do, and what you won't do, the more likely you are to get it. When you...
3 min read
Setting boundaries around bullsh*t
I've drawn a new boundary around my professional life: no more leadership team coaching.
2 min read
Create Systems Change
Ever started a job and had that new-starter clarity? You're baffled by all the things that don’t make sense and say annoying things in meetings like:...
3 min read
Strategists Get Whatever They Want
Here's something strategists know that not everyone else does: you can have literally anything you want, at work, home or in your life. Nothing is...
3 min read
How to Care About Your Job Again
If you've woken up today with a sense of dread about what awaits you at your desk, you're not alone. A 2019 Gallup poll found that out of the world's...
2 min read
Wear and Tear
I've had a hell of a time with my house lately. After an initial few years of mostly uneventful occupation, she's really turned on me in the last...
4 min read
WTF, Netflix? Teenage sex and entertainment
Child Pornography for the Masses At the time of writing, the Number 1 movie on NZ Netflix is Do Revenge. The plot centres on a victim of 'revenge...
3 min read
Own Your Outcast Status
How It Started In 2014, I left my job as a policy analyst and strategic planner. I'd been so excited by that job - for lots of reasons. I was the...
3 min read
Inciting Incidents
As I assume you've noticed, The Queen died last week after 70 years as the reigning monarch. In that time, she saw a lot, including:
6 min read
A Certain Type of Man: The Family Man
I’d like to introduce to you: the family man. Not the responsible, fatherly, working class man of popular culture, mind you. A hologram. A cultural...
2 min read
Use Your Big Voice
Last Tuesday, I took my children to see Clementine Ford at the Embassy Theatre here in Wellington. Of all the wonderful things she said, one...