Blog
The emotionally intelligent CEO
In the afternoon of 27 April 1977, we were all called to an impromptu townhall meeting in the Perth offices of Agnew Mining Company. I was the Personnel Research Officer, hired five months earlier by the CEO, Barry.
The high cost of leadership
As an organisational psychologist and executive coach I'm often called in to help individuals manage workplace politics. Often it's about friction from within the team, sometimes involving outright bullying. At other times it's about "stakeholder management" and how to use influence to get people to do what you need them to do.
The lessons of history
History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. George Orwell showed remarkable prescience in his dystopian book 1984 (written in 1948): ‘Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.’
The non-bias fallacy
Everyone is biased, except me! Cognitive biases do save your brain time and energy through mental shortcuts. But they are just tools: useful in the right contexts, but harmful in others.
Alien Intelligence
Hollywood may have terrorised us about alien invasions, but the aliens are already here and living amongst us! AI is actually 'Alien Intelligence' according to Jewish historian, Yuval Noah Harari in his 2024 book, Nexus.
Creating Your Island of Sanity
For some time now I've been helping individuals and teams make wiser choices in a mad world. But it's getting harder. And the world is getting madder.
Decisions, Decisions!
We make around 35,000 decisions a day, that’s about 2,000 decisions an hour! Most decisions are relatively trivial, but some are important, and a few are critical! I’ve spent the last decade and a half researching critical decisions, the ones that make a difference to our lives and the lives of others. I’ve wanted to understand the dimensions of decisions which might be considered wise.
Running on Empty!
It's true there are physical limits to how much you can get your body to perform, particularly if you’re suffering from long-term fatigue. But you can extend the range of your batteries by focusing on one or more of the components of psychological energy. To extend the metaphor, you really have a hybrid power train made up of physical and psychological energy. When you feel like you’re running on empty, switch to your psychological electric engine!
When it's time to let it go!
There are times when things you were certain about and relied upon fall apart and dissolve before your eyes. What was so clear only days or weeks before turns to dust. “This isn’t the way it was meant to be” you cry out. What can you do in those moments?
Report from the Front!
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is now in its 10th month and represents the largest land battle in Europe since the second world war. Ukraine is out-gunned and out-numbered, yet Russia is turning out to be Goliath to Ukraine’s David. What can we learn?
Unintended Consequences of Innovation!
What can primate research tell us about human behaviour? After all, we’re basically smart monkeys who have lost our tails. Although maybe we’re not as smart as we’d like to think.
The Shipwreck of Humanistic Culture!
I was recently called in to be the psychologist in attendance when a multinational company announced it was closing its Australian business. We were ushered into the main trading floor on a cold and blustery day as the CEO read out a prepared statement to the 100 staff gathered there and dozens more online. The company was declared to be insolvent, and all operations were to be placed in the hands of the administrators. All jobs ceased, effective immediately.
Post Traumatic Lockdown Syndrome and the long tail of COVID
As a psychologist seeing patients on Telehealth through those two years of lockdowns in Melbourne I got to hear stories of COVID casualty first hand. I’m now seeing the long tail of PTLS (Post-Traumatic Lockdown Syndrome), and I wonder if the casualties of COVID might have been ameliorated if governments had applied System 3 Thinking in their decision-making:
How Human Resources Exploits Us!
The term “human resources” is an anachronism. It goes back to the way military language was first used to describe position and responsibility in the dark satanic mills of the industrial revolution. In the post-pandemic ways of working the term now looks as ridiculous as a beached boat after the tide has gone out. It may have sailed once. But it has lost its buoyancy. Why?
When the Sydney Light Rail got Heavy!
The Sydney Light Rail project was, and still is, a debacle. It was a singular idea floated by the New South Wales premier in 2012 and rushed through to secure another term for her government. But it became apparent that the state government had withheld information to get this signed off quickly.
The Culture at Boeing!
Organisational culture impacts performance, but in the case of Boeing it literally impacted the ground, causing 346 deaths. How did the world’s largest aerospace company lose its way? Boeing’s problems go back to their takeover of McDonnell Douglas in 1997.
Bankers Behaving Badly!
The financial services industry is based on a fantasy. The fantasy that money possesses inherent value. And the more you have the more valuable you are. That fantasy collapsed with the findings of the Australian Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry released in 2019.
Seize The Future!
Don’t let the future happen to you. Seize it! I wrote a book in 2021 about how to change your thinking because I predicted the time would come when the old ways of thinking no longer worked: How do you solve the issues of hybrid working and still retain a consistent culture? What does distributed leadership look like? How do you get the right people? What’s the “next big thing” (and how do you avoid missing out)?
The Four Spaces of Team Decision Making
Getting team agreement on a decision has always felt like herding cats. But it’s a bit trickier now with hybrid working. Not everyone is on the same page or even in the same window. So, here’s a way to refresh team decision making.
What were they thinking?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the biggest land war in Europe since WW2. Amidst the wanton destruction and violation of human life in return for territorial acquisition you can justifiably feel sorrow and anger and ask those who started this war, “just what were you thinking?”