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Showing posts from December 5, 2016

BALLROOM DANCING

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BALLROOM DANCING, ARE YOU INTO THIS, BELIEVE ME IT CAN HELP YOU AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE. What can ballroom dancing teach us about leadership? I danced competitively for 10 years in 10 different dances and I learned lots about leading. It requires discipline of hours of painful practice, not giving up when your body is screaming 'It's enough', unrelenting determination to do better.  Like leadership, dancing also requires generosity, empathy, lead and follow in equal dosage. But my most profound lesson was we only get to perform for 3 minutes on the floor, but we prepared for 300 hours before - dancing like leadership is not a destination, it is a journey it's the exposure and the learning curve with trying continuously in a variety of moves and decision. It also can allow you to distress and relax in which you gain better composure and handling of your emotions and pressure. You would be the best presenter in the boardroom as your kills would carry you further.

CHANGE IS RELENTLESS

As we wind down to the end of the year, new projects and programmes for 2017 are being defined.  I have been involved in so much change this year but it is not all neatly finishing in time for new initiatives to begin. Clearing the decks This relentless cycle of change is best addressed by revisiting those that are 'nearly finished' to see what we can do to 'push them over the line' and create enough space for all the new changes coming up. Many of these tasks address small details which are disproportionately time consuming to fix but which have a negative impact on productivity. For example, dealing with those customers whose exceptional circumstances don't fit with the new streamlined processes and which are being handled by individual team members. Or the manual workarounds needed for some expenses not automatically processed by the new finance system. Find your 'completer/finishers' and get them to help I know my working style is creating big ideas and