Robin Stuart-Kotze is a founder of Behavioural Science Systems www.behaviouralscience.com consultancy, whose clients have ranged from P&O to BP to Oracle to Johnson & Johnson. He
Lifelong careers are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, at least in western Europe and North America. People now have more than three career changes during their working life, according to statistics. But what does that mean exactly? The University of Nebraska defines career change as...
Jo Owen missed out one dangerous phrase from his list -- conventional wisdom. Business phrases like best practice, standard procedure, and accepted wisdom reflect a static position based in the past. Professor Jeff Pfeffer here in an interview with Guy Kawasaki says that "when companies follow prevailing conventional wisdom, they...
Is it better to hire people on the basis of their experience or their potential? If you believe experience is preferable, and that age equates with experience, there's no better time than now. By 2011 about half UK workforce will be over 40,...
The sharp downturn in the world economy has changed the nature of the talent business. It's suddenly gone from frantically trying to recruit bright and able people to focusing on keeping and developing them. A chief executive of a large British company recently...
Moving into a leadership role is far from easy. Rarely are you given a blueprint of what it takes to be successful. New leaders are left to work that out for themselves. But there are a couple of big banana skins they can avoid if they...
Fear of failure can prevent people from doing various things, but fear of success also gets in the way. We develop our self-concept from an early age and once it is formed, it is difficult to change. We "know" what we can -- and cannot --...
Why are people afraid of failure? Failure's not just part of life, it's essential to life -- and to success. Henry Ford put it most eloquently: "Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently". You can't learn if you don't fail. Anyone who thinks...
Employee engagement is a comparatively new term, but the concept is old. We used to call it commitment or involvement. Even without research, common sense dictates that if you're keen, committed and involved -- and these attitudes are supported, respected, encouraged and rewarded...
Google "leadership" and you'll get around 163 million entries. Search Amazon for books on leadership and you'll get 39,000 results. A search for leadership articles takes you into the millions. Leadership isn't a concept, it's an industry. The modern business press have glorified...
Organisational life can be highly frustrating at times. But how you respond to pressure can have a significant and lasting effect on those around you. We pay far more attention to people's behaviour than we do to what they say, especially if the verbal message is unclear...
Jim Collins, the author of "Good to Great", wrote that Level 5, or 'great', leadership involves being modest and considerate. Level 5 leaders "build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will". Oh yeah? Tell that to Jack Welch, Larry Ellison, Richard Branson,...
Are you creative? There's a mistaken belief that very few people are creative and that the rest of us poor plods couldn't come up with an original idea if it were served to us on a platter. Quotes like: "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a...
There should be a health warning stamped on the foreheads of bad bosses: "Working for this person could be damaging to your heart." Research published last month in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine journal showed that people working for bad bosses have a significantly increased risk of...
