Montgomery Burns’ Executive Washroom

The Simpsons Episode 15, October 18 1990 There’s an old episode of ‘The Simpsons’ in which Homer grows a full head of hair and unwittingly impresses Mr. Burns. He’s rewarded by being given ‘the key’. This key unlocks the executive washroom, a toilet reserved for senior executives at the Springfield nuclear power plant. Behind the locked door to the washroom …

A Personal Rant: Absentee Leaders

Imagine a football team in which the on-field leader (the captain) hangs around the center circle watching everyone else kick the ball around. They observe from a distance. They send an email when somebody loses the ball. They don’t even join in with the half-time water break. They drink their own private water, perhaps a more premium brand, in a …

Review: Team Leadership Workshop Phuket July 4 2022

Based on “The Art of Teaming” workshop, this slightly expanded version looked at how the concept of teaming can be applied to any type of team – whether it’s a team that has been together for years or one that has recently formed. Our client was an international tech company focused on financial and regulatory markets. Something to do with …

Delegation Vs. Abdication

There’s a common theme in offices around the world. When the manager wants to assign a job to someone, often a job that they don’t want to do themselves, they “delegate” it to someone else in their team. This is usually followed by a wry smile that says “I don’t want to do this job. So I’m giving it to …

Welcome New Team Members with Empathy

Orientation? What Orientation? I was recently chatting with a friend who had just accepted a new position in the marketing department of a luxury hotel in Phuket. I asked her what steps the hotel had taken to integrate her into the team. We commonly refer to such a process as ‘workplace orientation’. I was astounded to hear that she had …

What Is Teaming?

The Need for Teaming Amy Edmonson, Novartis Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School, coined the phrase in her book ‘Teaming: How Organisations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy.’ She describes it as a verb referring simply to ‘teamwork on the fly.’ We usually think of a team as a stable entity. For example, a business unit in …

What Happens When Leaders Forget to Focus on Their Teams?

When Employees Lose Their Mojo I wanted to share this little anecdote with you because I feel that it nicely demonstrates what happens when leadership doesn’t keep a sharp focus on the team. At the time, I was a regional manager at a large hospitality company here in Thailand. My department was currently in the middle of an office move. …

Don’t Overcomplicate Leadership

The Need for Simplicity Most afternoons, I scroll through LinkedIn reading various posts and articles under the #teams hashtag. Some days, I’ll find a real gem in there but some days I want to throw my iPad across the room. Some of the advice is just so complex and highbrow that I struggle to digest it. And this is my …

Tuckman’s Five Stages of Team Development. Still Relevant?

Bruce Tuckman Explains How Groups Mature into Self-Managing Teams It was in 1965 that Bruce Tuckman first published his model of team development. Now, in 2022, it remains one of the most popular ways to model the formation and gradual development of teams. 1965 was a long time ago though and many people are asking the question ‘is it still …

Book Review: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

A Great Read for Any Aspiring Team Leader Patrick Lencioni is the American founder of The Table Group, a well-respected management consultancy based in San Francisco. He is a well-known author of management, leadership, teamwork, and organisational health books. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is his most famous. Like all his books, this one begins with a fable in …