Public Library
“We have been taught to live in fear”
On pages 18 and 19 in his best-seller “Conversations with God (Book 1)” Neale Donald Walsch writes these profound words, and we have used them on our Programs to explain why human behaviours are so negative and so damaging to other humans and to our planet.
Sensible Effective Cost Cutting, or Corporate Bulimia?
Once upon-a-time General Motors owned half the automobile market in the United States and was the world’s biggest and most admired company. Today it has only 20% of the market and is pleading in Washington with its begging bowl.
Small boys and memories
I have a three year old grandson, Jonathan, who told me he was going to go to his daddy’s office and draw pictures with his daddy’s pencils and drink tea.
How to really enjoy your 70th birthday - if you get there!
On the 16th of November this year I turned 70. My family asked me how I would like to celebrate and that got me thinking back over 70 absolutely magnificent years.
Galvanizing Gucci
Every now and again Fortune Magazine features an unusual business leader who consciously, or not, understands how to enable energy to flow in an organisation. Robert Polet, the CEO of Gucci, is proving the fundamental relationship between energy and effectiveness and is harnessing the potential of the exponential to double the size of the business and grow its profits significantly faster than sales.
Strategies of the Serengeti
One of the best books I have read recently is Strategies of the Serengeti by Stephen Berry.
The Lesson of Yeast
Colin uses the metaphor of two dough mixtures, one without yeast vs one with yeast, to describe the key ingredient to every relationship that is important. The yeastless dough lot, when baked, stayed absolutely unchanged – it was the same weight, size and shape as it had been. The yeasted dough however, had to be divided because it had grown so healthily and filled two baking pans producing two light appetising loaves. The lesson to be learnt is that without a carefully grown and nurtured investment in energy, the most competent humans and human organisations are dull heavy and almost indigestible...
What can South Africa teach about Leadership?
It depends on how you define “leadership”. There are as many definitions of leadership as there are books and articles written about it ….. and more! But there seems to be some consensus around the idea that leadership is about getting things done, either by getting others to do them or by doing them oneself - personal leadership, if you like.
What About Energy?
From when we are very young and have to get up in the morning to face the day, getting things done has been the daily challenge. Getting to school, learning tables, opening the shop, cooking and cleaning, essential DIY, having meetings, running the country! A daily relentless challenge we all face with limited resources of money, time, ideas and help.
There Are Two Educations
“There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live”. John Adams.
The Task…..The Challenge
On the 27th of April 1994 Nelson Mandela led an appallingly divided people out of a country of stunted potential called “Apartheid South Africa” into a united country of seemingly infinite possibility called the “New South Africa,” in a feat still considered by many to be an unprecedented miracle of human forgiveness and consequential political re-organisation.
The Network
One of the hardest lessons I have learnt in a long business experience, is to trust the network.
The Four Steps to Living Fully
William Shakespeare wrote centuries ago about the steps we have to take to reach adulthood and we have tried to simplify the journey and spice up the destination. Instead of “adulthood” we aim for “living fully” as an adult close to one’s full potential, day after day.
Team Builds
So much has been said and written – and tried – to achieve an effective team. And then to sustain effective team behaviour. Members of teams are loaded into inflatables and sent down rapids; tied by their ankles and dropped off bridges; lowered on ropes down sheer cliffs; or required to compete, perform, show off or make fools of themselves.
Baking & Cooking
Colin assimilates the metaphor of cooking and baking to describe what it is that is taught at Learning to Lead - baking is a science, while cooking is an art. At Learning to Lead we don't teach baking, we teach cooking, and the ingredients we use are humans.
