Earlier this year, we introduced the concept of a ‘thriving’ organization. What’s a thriving organization? Thriving organizations are those organizations that provide psychologically safe, fun, engaging, and productive environments for their employees, and that are sourced (driven) from their WHY. These organizations are also often known as being particularly successful at driving innovation and change. Further, these organizations are almost always made up of leaders and employees who thrive at an individual level. In this video, we discuss how leading effective organizations and change requires leading others effectively, and how leading others effectively starts by leading self first. For more information on…

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By Sandro Krug Open Space 1.0 Numerous articles, reviews, and books have been published on how to create a perfect work environment. Environment seems to be key to success, because without a great environment even great ideas are useless. In the last decade a lot of companies have embraced the idea of creating innovative office ideas and have moved away from dedicated offices to open floor plans and unassigned seating, where teams from different functions work and meet. Some office floors are being built smaller with glass-walled offices, private conversation rooms, and self-service kitchens to promote frequent, physical, spontaneous interactions….

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In 2015, Richard Hyman, Professor of Management at the London School of Economics, published a brilliant paper on “The Very Idea of Democracy at Work.” Hyman started his paper by asking the million-dollar question: Is democracy at work possible? I loved his question then and I love it even more today because there is such a craving for more humanity to evolve – in all directions – and a desire to advance the human condition at work as a part of that amazing movement. If you haven’t read Peter Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline (1990), it has a beautiful opening line…

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90% of organizations fail at executing their strategic initiatives (Kaplan and Norton). Harvard Business Review sights the average ROI on most strategic planning initiatives is 34% or less. How can that be? These statistics are staggering! Sadly our many years of experience agree with these industry findings. Organizations do struggle mightily in realizing their vision.  There are consistent reasons why organizations falter in getting consistent results. There is also consistency among organizations that manage to meet their vision every time.  Below we share with you the top commonly observed eight reasons for strategic execution failure and possibilities around how to…

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“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.” – Eckhart Tolle We all know someone who seem to ‘bumble’ through life with no real sense of time – almost like a butterfly. These are often the same people who dread replying back to a quick email, leave 20 minutes before a party 60 km away…

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It’s not that teams aren’t important. They are. We know they are. Yet we live in a swirl of teams, often too busy or overwhelmed to see their true richness and tap their tremendous opportunity. The issue? We don’t know what to do with the importance teams have in our lives. Take a look at what we already know about the ubiquity and consistency of the importance of teams in organizations: In my coaching and consulting company, when we begin working with a team that desires to improve effectiveness, we start with a simple question: “How many teams are you…

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For decades, importance was put on our knowledge and technical skills. Some of my clients working in leadership positions shared with me that they have been taught to ignore their emotions and the emotions of their coworkers. However, Daniel Goleman concluded in his research that a person’s personal and interpersonal skills carried much more weight than a person’s IQ. He concluded that IQ only counts for between 4 and 10% of factors that determine career success. New technologies taken over most of our analytical thinking, however, it is inconceivable that they can replace our human capabilities like feeling, relationship building…

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When we first launched our platform, Whirling Chief in mid 2016, we talked a lot about strategy and strategy execution. Strategy is and continues to be one of those topics that keep business leaders up at night. It is also one of the topics HR function gets most pushed back on. Understanding what strategy is and discovering ways to effectively execute on a strategy to drive results (every time) is one thing; understanding there is a ‘value’ associated with results of a given strategy is another. Leaders we consult with and coach, often, seem to understand there is an end goal in…

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Here comes the second of the 3 video series on Thriving Organizations. Everybody is talking about how to create psychologically safe, productive, engaging organizations. Well, we think we have found the right recipe to share… In this video, our contributor and co-Founder of WhyNot Partnering, Simon Marshall and our Founder, Sesil Pir are chatting about what it takes to create a thriving organization and are introducing our new Leadership Development Curriculum. For more information on the topic or related questions, please leave a comment on our site and/or under our YouTube channel. Thank you.

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We call organisations where people thrive Why-Based Organisations because, in order to do so, they have to be working on things that really matter to them. This is work that is connected to their Why – their ‘cause, purpose, or belief’ – as defined by Simon Sinek.   © © Simon Sinek Inc As a recap on the critical four attributes that Why-Based Organisations have over ‘normal’ organisations, please watch our recently posted video. What a Why-Based Organisation looks and feels like The below diagram explains how a Why-Based Organisation stands out over an ordinary organisation. The way to unleash…

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