The AltusQ Blog
News, upcoming events and articles written by our coaches
Another year almost over…
Another year almost over… Christmas is coming quickly and it’s a natural time of year to reflect. Below is a snapshot of some of this year’s blogs to provide a summary of the key messages as well as to provide some reflection questions… Elon Musk’s wisdom: “One of the really tough things is figuring out…
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Men in leadership
Men in leadership – is there a crisis? What’s the issue? Do you really know where you stand today? Have you lost your way? Do you know where you fit in? There has been a lot of justifiable concern about how some men in leadership positions have inappropriately treated women (I’m referring here to campaigns…
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How to avoid a stick mentoring mess
How to avoid a sticky mentoring mess Organisational mentoring programs, done right, are the most efficient and most highly leveraged investment an organisation can make. Really, truly, honestly! Done well, mentoring breaks down departmental stovepipes, builds communication, supports innovation, builds succession and skill development, shifts culture and wait for it… builds engagement, not just for…
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Authentic Leadership
Authentic Leadership A few days ago I gave a 2-hour workshop on Authentic Leadership to 200 senior women leaders at the Uniting Churches National Women’s Conference. It was quite an incredible experience… Knowing that theological leaders are deeply philosophical and reflective, I knew I needed to dig deeper into this very deep topic (Harvard’s #1…
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Just ask the question!
Just ask the question! I’m reading an Elon Musk book at the moment and came across the following quote: “One of the really tough things is figuring out what question to ask. Once you figure out the question, then the answer is relatively easy.” I loved this quote because this is the premise of coaching and…
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Are you in control?
Are you in control? We all like to feel we are in control. Thinking we are in control is certainly better than believing that we are not in control and thinking that the world is in control of us! But I must admit to changing my thinking about the words I use in talking about…
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Is your organisation resilient?
Is your organisation resilient? Denyer (2017) at BSI and Cranfield School of Management investigated the evidence on organisational resilience. Some important take-outs: organisational resilience resilience is ‘the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond and adapt to incremental change and sudden disruptions’ organisational resilience ‘involves changing before the cost of not changing becomes too great’…
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How do we run leadership programs that are evidence-based?
How do we run leadership programs that are evidence-based? Based on a meta-analysis(1) by Lacerenza and others (2017), leadership programs do lead to improvements in organisational results. To get results, though, we need to use multiple delivery methods and multiple sessions, hold programs on-site, require mandatory attendance, provide as much training as possible and include…
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Why reflect?
Why reflect? “We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey (1933:78) If there is one common denominator amongst all of my current coaching clients that is producing powerful personal and professional change at varying levels of leadership, it is this: Quite simply, the…
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Building High Performing Teams – Avoiding Awkward
Building High Performing Teams – Avoiding Awkward Recently, I was running a training session for Mentee’s who were about to take on a mentoring journey for the first time. The context for mentee’s is “responsibility”. Scheduling, goal setting, follow through and follow up is to be driven by the mentee, that is, they have to…
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The black art of accountability – Part two
The black art of accountability – Part two In our last blog we discussed how everyone has a set of non-negotiables which become obvious in conflict. See below for a refresh. Did you reflect on your non-negotiables, and that of others around you? Non-negotiables sound really straight-forward but nailing them down can be difficult. One of the…
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It’s a piece of cake
It’s a piece of cake “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is also a sign of genius since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in the dissimilar.” – Aristotle Metaphors are a powerful way to energetically unite teams. They simplify the complex and create…
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Building High Performing Teams – Generative Conflict
Building High Performing Teams – Generative Conflict We are conditioned to believe that conflict is all bad. For most of us conflict is an uncomfortable physical and mental state to be in. We will often avoid conflict at all costs. Conflict often implies right or wrong, yes or no, it is divisive by nature, it…
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The black art of accountability – Part one
The black art of accountability My two sons are doing Ju Jitsu this year – a change from years of soccer. My commitment to them (and my wife) was that I would ferry them every Tuesday/Thursday evening. I made that commitment as I felt it was about time I put at least one of the kids’…
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Who are the true masters of storytelling?
Who are the true masters of storytelling? This was the spectacular view from Sydney Festival’s Moonlight Cinema last night. Weirdly, what really caught my attention was the ads. What advertisers understand better than anyone is how to influence through storytelling and they just keep getting better and better at it. Masterful ads for airlines selling…
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