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ChatGPT in the Workplace?

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 09:45:00 GMT

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�� Users send around 18 billion messages each week, or ��,�� - that's a lot of data centre racks and chips.

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➡️ ��-�� : While most debates focus on workplace productivity, the bigger story is that nearly three-quarters of usage now happens in personal contexts — learning new things, managing health and wellbeing, making life choices, or solving day-to-day problems. Work usage is more common for educated users in highly-paid professional occupations.

➡️ ��-�� : Nearly half of all usage is about 'Asking' — using AI to weigh choices, test ideas, and shape better decisions. This is less about automation and more about co-piloting human judgment.

➡️ �� : Growth is fastest in low- and middle-income countries. This could narrow global knowledge gaps.

➡️ �� : Gender parity has been reached; younger users dominate, but older professionals are increasingly turning to it for work. Adoption doesn’t mirror workplace hierarchies, which means leaders need to ensure inclusion and avoid blind spots.

➡️ �� : Coding and therapy are small fractions of use (contrary to previous findings). The real action is in writing and decision-support.

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On Strategy, Mission and Purpose (Ithaca — in Greek Mythology the island home of Odysseus).

Sat, 11 Mar 2023 16:25:00 GMT

On Strategy, Mission and Purpose (Ithaca — in Greek Mythology the island home of Odysseus).

As you set out for Ithaca

Hope your road is a long one

Full of adventure, full of discovery.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt —

Don’t be afraid of them

You’ll not find those on your way

As long as you keep your thoughts raised high

As long as a rare excitement

Stirs your spirit and your body

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt — you’ll not encounter them

Unless you bring them along inside your soul

Unless your soul puts them in front of you

Hope your road is a long one

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbours you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at many trading stations

to buy fine things,

and may you visit many cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaca always in your mind.

Arriving there is not the goal

So don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave you the marvellous journey.

Without her you wouldn’t have set out.

Source: Excerpted and (shamelessly) adapted from: C. P. Cavafy, “The City” from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.

On Strategy, Mission and Purpose (Ithaca — in Greek Mythology the island home of Odysseus). was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How does ChatGPT know stuff? And why is it important?

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 16:59:00 GMT

Why is it important?

Google reportedly issued a “code red” to emphasize the existential threat that ChatGPT (together with Microsoft) may form for their core business of search .

Microsoft is out to eat Google’s lunch.

This new application of AI is a gamechanger at the magnitude of the PC/Windows, the internet/www and the iPhone/mobile.

GPT is important because there are unlikely to be more than a handful of these massive AI engines on the planet. They are simply too big, too complex and too expensive to build and run.

A future clutch of AI titans may well form the backbone of a global AI infrastructure — in rather the same sense that network protocols, email, the web and social media defined our internet experience of the last 25 years.

So the battle is on to get into this space and bigtech will be spending gazillions to catch up with ChatGPT. Indeed, Google has just announced its own chat engine called Bard . It will be interesting to see whether Bard matches ChatGPT’s range and depth.

Both ChatGPT and Bard are based on the same Transformer (the ‘T’ of GPT) technology. The transformer architecture originated in Google’s labs (making it rather sour for them that OpenAI is now eating their lunch) and was published in a paper Attention is All You Need (Vaswani et al, 2017).

CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman says (in an interview with Reid Hoffman ) that a lot of value will be created in a new ‘middle layer’ on top of GPT. We’re already seeing a growing ecosystem of applications built on the ChatGPT foundation — some of these will be bandwagon-jumpers, others may be great value creators.

What might the new middle layer comprise? In short, almost anything a human can do: computer programming, medical diagnosis, biotech, financial advice, share price guidance, customer service chatbots (that actually work) and answering exam questions.

Microsoft will be launching numerous features this year based on its cooperation with OpenAI. Like automated meeting minutes and action lists (how awesome is that?), or dynamically generated images for PowerPoint based on OpenAI’s Dall-E (hopefully better than the image below).

The cooperation with Microsoft will almost certainly consolidate ChatGPT’s position as one of the global leaders in the field. Not to mention the involvement of OpenAI’s sponsor Elon Musk — although he has been backing off lately saying that OpenAI was started as open-source & non-profit. “Neither are still true.” Could be a fly in the ointment there — never underestimate Mr. Musk.

The connection with Microsoft is the existential threat for Google — overlay ChatGPT onto Teams, Office365, Bing and Microsoft’s global reach and Google may rightly be a little worried.

Google made its name (and became a verb) by offering a simple, clean web page with a search box in the middle. This was in stark contrast to the cacophony of other search engines with flashing, ad-covered pages. History may be repeating itself.

How does ChatGPT know stuff?

Well…health warning, often it doesn’t, and it can get things spectacularly and hilariously wrong. Notwithstanding its ability to pass MBA and other university-level exam questions.

But it can be a lot easier and more user-friendly than old-fashioned search with ads. Often 90% accurate is good enough as a starter.

GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. Generative means it can generate reasonable human-like responses. Pre-trained means it learns only relatively little in real-time — most of what it knows is pre-trained (or pre-learned). The transformer architecture means it is pretty good at translating what it “knows” into human language, and vice versa, including language translation.

ChatGPT is a conversational interface built on an underlying engine called GPT-3. GPT-3 is a Deep Neural Network. As such, it mimics the human brain. It has ‘artificial neurons’ which create ‘artificial intelligence’. The artificial neurons are organized into layers, and each layer processes information in a similar way that neurons process information in our brains.

Neural networks are trained by passing data through learning algorithms. These algorithms switch neurons ‘on’ or ‘off’ and create links between the neurons. As with our brains, the number of neurons is not the driving factor behind intelligence, it’s the links between the neurons.

The way in which a pathway of neurons and links is formed is called a parameter .

A parameter is a weight or bias in the learning model. It’s the parameters that are adjusted (or ‘learn’) by processing large amounts of data. The more data, the more parameters and the better the engine’s performance and accuracy can be.

Reportedly, GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters. Currently, there is no other model close to that number. And the rumours are that the next version (GPT-4 in 2023?) will have up to a trillion parameters. Bard is reputed to have 137 billion parameters.

Most of GPT’s knowledge recipe comes from Common Crawl (basically, that’s almost everything on the internet). But ‘everything on the internet’ is not very high quality, so it is augmented by WebText2 based on Reddit recommendations (so curated to some extent). Then add in two sets (corpuses) of books (rather cryptically known as Books1 and Books2). Leave to simmer for a few weeks and then add in the whole of Wikipedia (in English).

Following that, the model was refined by human beings on typical questions and answers.

Maybe not surprising that the machine reflects the inputs it’s trained on and has a bias towards the English language and US/Anglo-Saxon culture.

Learning takes a while, and the current version was trained on data up to June 2021, so the model is not good on current affairs. Bard is likely to be more real-time based on Google’s underlying search and web crawl technology.

Next possible gamechanger? Look out for new entrants and a successor to the transformer protocol. Watch this space, but don’t hold your breath on the latter.

Having said that, and to paraphrase Bill Gates, we tend to overestimate the short term impact of new technology, and underestimate the long term.

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How does ChatGPT know stuff? And why is it important? was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Leaders: the Good, the Bad and the Terrifying

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 20:41:00 GMT

In leadership, there are the good, the bad and the terrifying.

You could argue that striving for great leadership responsibility is a neurotic deviation from the norm…and indeed, some of the time it is: There are enough nutcases in leadership positions, seemingly especially so on the global stage at the moment.

Some leaders are driven from a sense of inner insecurity and malignant narcissism. They are driven to achieve in order to prove to themselves and to the world that they are worthwhile human beings. They crave external appreciation to compensate for a lack of inner appreciation. Their childhood is typified by cold and distant parenting, overindulgent parenting or interrupted development of some kind.

This early childhood damage leads to a poor sense of self-esteem. These individuals can achieve positions of great responsibility and be extremely successful. But they can also be extraordinarily dangerous people. Without psychological help and coaching these leaders can cause great damage to their environment and to themselves [i] .

Napoleon said that leaders are merchants in hope. They peddle their hope for a better future to their followers who in turn project their hopes back onto the leader. Transference is an important feature in leadership and followership.

Leaders, through their charisma, invite followers to project their dreams onto the leader, thereby reinforcing the leader’s sense of being in control — perhaps to the point of invincibility or infallibility.

Especially in stressful situations, followers can develop unreal expectation of their leaders and leaders can lose themselves in hubris with disastrous consequences. They lose touch with reality and enter into a surreal world of fantasy. This is the place where things go insanely off track, and truth and lies, right and wrong get blurred as leaders lose their way.

The line between right and wrong is an ethical and moral one. In a volatile environment the temptations to water down ethical values can be great…but will inevitably lead to political, business and, usually, personal disaster. Viz. Jeffrey Skilling (Enron)or Carlos Ghosn (Nissan Renault) who are both at the mild end of the spectrum compared to some political nutcases.

Leadership can bring out the best and the worst in human beings.

Few other activities provide such a breadth and depth of opportunity to make our world a better place. Unfortunately, at the terrifying end of the good-bad spectrum, it has tragic consequences for our world.

Article adapted from a chapter of my book written a few years ago. More on leadership styles here .

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[i] Manfred Kets de Vries, The Leader on the Couch , John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2006.

Leaders: the Good, the Bad and the Terrifying was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The New Leadership Equation

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 09:25:00 GMT

A high intelligence quotient (IQ) is not a guarantee for success in life or business — OK nothing new here. Leaders must also have a high emotional quotient (EQ).

Leaders need to be bright but they also need to be self-aware and socially-aware, and through awareness be capable of managing themselves and their relationships better [Daniel Goleman et al].

Leadership life is demanding and stressful and good physical health (PQ) is required too. However, there is a further dimension to the new leadership formula, that of spiritual awareness, or SQ.

I use the word spiritual here not in the sense of piety, religiousness, worship or godliness per se. I use it in the sense of a search for a higher meaning and purpose, and a recognition that we are on this planet to do more than consume some of its resources.

SQ is about creativity and questioning. SQ means recognising our own roles and the role of our enterprises in a more holistic, global, environmental and human context. A high SQ means having the ability to see beyond the traditional role of the enterprise as a value-adding machine.

SQ recognises the responsibility that the organization has to society and to its people. SQ is about a deeper purpose to existence.

SQ provides the ability to think outside the box, to see the greater whole, to recognise linkages and patterns. This ability is not a result of cognitive reasoning, but of intuition, insight and high self-esteem.

For businesses, SQ will be as important for success as EQ. SQ will add directly to the long-term success (even survival) of the enterprise and to improving the bottom-line. It will do this with breakthrough innovation, talent retention, greater wisdom and improved judgment.

Top class leaders have what I call a high Leadership Quotient :

Leadership Quotient = IQ + EQ + PQ + SQ

LQ is the sum of intelligence, emotional wellbeing, physical health and spiritual insight.

There are a number of leading thinkers who are changing the way business works. Three examples:

The Oxford Leadership Academy under the direction of Brian Bacon is bringing a new dimension to management consulting. Bacon encourages deep and authentic leadership, true corporate social responsibility and a pragmatic spirituality.

Google Fellow Chade-Meng Tan advocates a mindful approach to life and business through meditation [i] . His objective is to develop effective and innovative leaders using science-backed mindfulness training — oh…and to promote world peace!

Satya Nadella of Microsoft (arguably the best of the best) was determined to transform the company into one that embraced what he called “learn-it-all” curiosity, as opposed to its hitherto “know-it-all” attitude. He is intolerant of anger or shouting at meetings. Microsoft’s market capitalisation increased from roughly $300 billion when Nadella’s started to $2.25 trillion today.

Organizations, from governments to businesses, are paying attention to, and, more importantly, acting upon, these leading-edge thinkers and influencers.

The future of leadership provides a tremendous opportunity to change our world for good. Although high-LQ leaders are few in number, the number is increasing. These new leaders will, hopefully, be capable of creating a new business, political, social and global paradigm. Watching the evening news, I think we need them.

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[i] Chade-Meng Tan, Search Inside Yourself, HarperCollins, 2012

The New Leadership Equation was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Preparing for a Cyber Conflict / Hybrid War

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 20:59:00 GMT

Will the war in Ukraine escalate into a hybrid war / cyber conflict?

Western intelligence on Putin’s plans has been on point so far.

So the recent White House briefing and statement by President Biden on cybersecurity is a serious wake-up call (insofar needed) for us all.

These White House briefings are based on what they call “evolving intelligence” that the Russian Government is exploring options for cyberattacks.

The UK National Cyber Security Centre published a warning on 18th March, including advice on actions to be undertaken.

Other Five Eyes countries are also warning of the threat. Australia has advice here . New Zealand here . Canada here .

The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity nor the Dutch Government have concrete advice as yet on the possible Russian attack scenarios.

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center detected an attack on Ukraine’s digital infrastructure in January and again hours before the actual invasion started. These attacks include “Ukrainian civilian digital targets, including the financial sector, agriculture sector, emergency response services, humanitarian aid efforts, and energy sector organizations and enterprises.” Microsoft raises concerns about possible contravention of the Geneva Convention.

It’s widely reported that Putin has his back to the wall, and the US and others are predicting he will deploy biological and/or chemical weapons. Against the backdrop of Putin’s increasing outrageous barbarity, a cyberattack is not unthinkable.

How to prepare for hybrid warfare or a state-backed cyber-attack?

For companies with any kind of relationship with people in or from Russia, Ukraine or Belarus, this is a minefield of complexity. Especially perhaps in Europe where millions of Russians and Ukrainians have made their home outside their native countries. This aspect is too much for this post — other than to put it at the top in the list — but Gartner has a good piece here on where to start.

Many companies sharpened their defences at the start of the Covid19 pandemic: Improved end-point security, vulnerability management and multi-factor authentication were triggered by the wave of people working-from-home and increased phishing attacks.

Notwithstanding the increased focus, worldwide government ransomware attacks rose by 1885% last year , and healthcare attacks by 775%.

The current threat goes a lot further than the security aspects of the pandemic — and will have long-lasting consequences. The security suggestions below are intended as input to the conversation and are, obviously, not exhaustive.

To do Now

1. Draw up a plan for the next 5/10/20 days.

2. People-first & Safety first: Physical and mental well-being. Stress levels were raised from the pandemic and many (security) teams are suffering from chronic high workloads and crisis-management. As with covid19, promote a sense of psychological safety and avoid burnout.

3. Stay calm and confident.

4. Communicate with all staff to ensure awareness and ability to execute as needed. Communicate regularly.

5. This is not going to be for free. Ensure sufficient funding is switched into security. Not for the next budget-cycle, but immediately.

6. Ratchet-up all your existing security activities. Revisit and refresh the points you put in place for the pandemic on end-point security, vulnerability management and monitoring.

7. Track government advice and follow-up as needed.

8. Check recommendations from suppliers — solicit where needed.

9. Offer advice to clients.

To do Next

1. Stay calm and confident.

2. Practice your Business Continuity Plan. Improve it and repeat. Focus on what you can control.

3. Prepare for communications when internet and/or email and/or social media no longer work. Provide hard copies of key documents.

4. Choose and check your information sources before acting. There is a lot of bad information out there.

5. Be prepared for a ransomware attack.

6. Ensure all data is held in secure (geographic) locations.

7. Check your insurance. Does it cover an act of war?

8. Draw up a plan for the next 100 days.

And Later

1. Cybersecurity budgeting will probably need to be increased. Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) are poor strategic counsellors and do not sell well in board rooms. So a balance needs to be struck with the new realities of the world, without relying on the bottomless pit of FUD.

2. Review your geo-political strategic positioning. Review (global) supply-chain sourcing and out-sourcing. Review your customer base against a global security threat landscape. Review data storage locations and back-up strategies.

3. Align with industry suppliers, peers and customers.

4. Review Business Continuity Planning to include your full eco-system.

5. Support the government and industry agencies in adopting a global cybersecurity leadership role.

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Preparing for a Cyber Conflict / Hybrid War was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why we need to get back to the office

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 13:16:00 GMT

You’re on mute…sorry — lost connection…wifi is not good today…I can’t hear you…can you hear me? can you see my screen?… your camera is off…I’m hearing an echo…

Friction-free teamwork can be challenging in the same physical space; doing it digitally (or “virtually”) brings a whole new set of challenges.

Although we do our best to function with a Zoom,Teams or Google, we do so with a brain that is, at least in part, programmed for Stone Age survival.

We are programmed through our evolution as a species to value connection, empathy, trust and loyalty. Ten thousand years ago we trusted the members of our tribe: a small band with whom we had close personal contact. The tribe survived through sharing warmth, food, water, security and emotional comfort.

We push ourselves to the digital edge of what we can handle, and there are times when we lose control and things go astray.

How about trying to read body language when all you can see is head and shoulders? Or worse, when the camera is turned off. Making hiring or career-changing decisions without meeting physically? Or the lack of real-time feedback when presenting to an audience on mute.

There is a popular view that 70% (or more) of communication is non-verbal. Body language speaks volumes, as it were. Face-to-face communication is a vital part of empathy and reading the other’s intent — especially when nothing is actually being said.

Much communication in an organization is accidental — at the coffee corner, the water-cooler, over lunch or in the conference room before the meeting starts. These chats are part of a bonding process to build relationships, trust and loyalty.

Teamwork needs to be physical, personal and up-close — at least once in a while. We are tribal beings and we need to connect with our tribe from time to time around the camp fire.

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Why we need to get back to the office was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why Attitude Matters

Sat, 30 Dec 2017 10:52:00 GMT

It’s accepted wisdom that Why is a powerful driving force. We’d rather do things for a reason and not because we are told to do them.

Simon Sinek has earned a good living telling us to start with the Why. It’s the Why that gets us up in the morning. Why does an organisation exist? Why explains purpose. In old-school business-speak, Why in essence means mission .

But is Sinek totally right and does Why explain the whole piece? Or is Why too cognitive…too aware…too rational? It might appeal to emotion but it’s not the same thing as emotion.

But let me start with a true story:

There is perhaps one thing that is more important than Why for achieving our goals; it is attitude . Attitude is the invisible driving force behind the way we live our lives.

Attitude lies behind our thought patterns. It determines how we view our world, what we think, what we do, what do not do, what we pay attention to and what we choose to ignore.

Attitude determines whether our purpose is forward-looking, positive and growth oriented or backward-looking, defensive, suspicious and negative. Our attitude leaks out in subtle ways through our words, voice tonality, physiology and general mood.

Our attitude determines how other people respond to us and whether we are happy or unhappy, successful or unsuccessful. As our mind and bodies form a single neurological system, our attitude will even determine our state of mental and physical health.

Attitude is a direction in which we lean. An attitude is similar to a belief but it is at a higher level of abstraction. Our attitude provides a template for our behaviour and our beliefs; it provides us with our values and a moral compass.

An attitude will override a belief; an attitude is more of an emotion or feeling, whereas a belief is more cognitive. An attitude determines general direction whereas a belief is more specific.

If the attitude of a person is that all change is a bad thing, then all change will be a bad thing, and the person will never be able to believe in any kind of change, regardless of how noble the purpose may be.

Attitude tells us that a situation or a person or our self is OK or not OK. We do not always choose the situations in which we find ourselves, but we can choose our attitude towards these situations.

We do not make ourselves; our parents, caretakers, genes and early environment do; we cannot change our history, but we can decide to change our attitude to it.

Does a tough upbringing make us tough, or does it make us defeatist? Do poor experiences with change make us more determined to be successful next time around and provide a learning experience, or do they make us give up?

Of his early years Dr Capecci says “It is not clear whether those early childhood experiences contributed to whatever successes I have enjoyed or whether those achievements were attained in spite of those experiences.” [i]

Do you see problems in every opportunity or opportunity in every problem? Do you see adversity in challenge or challenge in adversity? Do you accept that change is part of the human condition and strive to embrace it, or resist it and hang onto the status quo? Life and business is all about change and the sooner we accept that fact the easier change becomes.

In the same sense that our bodies become what we put into them as nourishment, our attitude becomes what we put into it as encouragement.

Our attitude reflects its inputs just as our bodies reflect their inputs. Managing our inputs is therefore as important for a healthy attitude as the food that you eat is for a healthy body.

Our attitude is fed by our thoughts and our thoughts are fed by our attitude — so we have a spiral that we influence positively or negatively.

It can help to consistently and positively turn the dial of your attitude towards the attitude you want to have. This means catching yourself in the act of doing good and congratulating and encouraging yourself to keep it up.

When you catch yourself with the right attitude, turn up the volume, go over the top in enjoying the moment, use hyperbole to tell yourself how great your attitude is — the subconscious has the communicative ability of a seven-year old, so enthuse your communication with positive words.

Is the moment good or is it great ? Is it fantastic or absolutely stupendous ? Do you feel comfortable with it or enormously thrilled ? Are you involved or totally committed ? Are you having an OK day , or is it amazing or good and getting better ? Or living the dream?

We don’t have to lie about how we’re feeling, but we can turn up the emotional volume and thereby program ourselves, and others, with the right (or better) attitude.

In organizations, the right attitude is to have a healthy respect for all the elements of the business — people, profits, customers, suppliers, society and the environment — and to maintain a balance in all these things.

If we want an organization that is a great place to work , we must hire people with the right attitude and invite people with the wrong attitude to change, or talk to HR about an alternative career path outside the organization. This may sound harsh, but people with the wrong attitude can negatively affect those around them — colleagues, suppliers, partners and, most importantly, customers.

The great thing about the right attitude is that it is contagious. The energetic business leader will energise people. The passionate teacher will impassion students to learn and achieve. The enthusiastic salesperson will win enthusiastic customers.

That’s what I think…what do you think?

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[i] Based on The Kyoto Prize Lecture given by Dr M. Capecchi in 1996. Quote used by kind permission of Dr Capecchi.

Why Attitude Matters was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Motivation…Beyond The Tipping Point

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 06:48:00 GMT

Perhaps it’s the last straw of frustration. Perhaps it’s somebody giving you that final feeling of confidence to go for it. Perhaps it’s a sudden intuitive realisation that you can achieve something you’ve dreamed of.

For any change there is a tipping point; a point where we say, “Yes, we are going do this thing.”

We are sometimes aware of the tipping point in real-time, but often only when looking back with the benefit of hindsight.

The tipping point is the moment when commitment can happen in an instant. It happens when your heart and mind, your beliefs, emotions and intellect, are aligned behind a new path.

It’s in that focal moment that magical things start to happen.

When we start to move in a direction with passion, purpose and commitment then opportunities appear upon our path. Our road rises to meet us. The opportunities may have always been there, but they go unnoticed until we become open to them.

In Indian pranic teaching they say we radiate our intent through our energy aura and the universe comes to meet us to help us on our way. Perhaps a little too numinous…but if you don’t move, the universe ain’t going to do it for you.

That’s what I think…what do you think?

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Motivation…Beyond The Tipping Point was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Surviving Office Politics

Sun, 17 Sep 2017 21:03:00 GMT

“Office politics sucks.” Most would probably agree with this statement.

Well…sort of. What we really mean is we hate the negative politics: the gossiping, the character assassination, the backstabbing, the subterfuge, the whispered words at the water cooler.

Yet we all engage in positive political behaviour, and successful business leaders are very adept at it.

Politics is the art of creating a coalition to achieve some outcome.

Everybody engages in politics. We are constantly checking our views against those of others and soliciting other peoples’ views. This is an integral part of making sure our behaviour fits in with the group and that the group is not going to threaten us in some way. It’s built into our DNA from 10,000 years ago; we like to belong to a tribe and we like the tribe to like us.

Coalition building in the democratic, modern workplace is more important than ever — whether your structured along agile lines, as a self-organizing holacracy or a more traditional alignment.

Political behaviour becomes dark when it is either deliberately, premeditatedly manipulative or coercive, or is done to disrupt either the harmony or process of the tribe/team. Negative politics can be a powerful force in an organization. Negative politics arises when people individually or as a group feel threatened and often manifests itself in attempts to sabotage decisions that have already been taken.

Playing politics is not the same as a genuine concern discussed openly and honestly. Negative politics is corrosive, subversive, seditious and really bad for business.

Negative politics is often driven by fear. Fear of loss of security or status; fear of failure; fear of being rejected by the tribe. But also through stress, lack of understanding, feeling undervalued. Perhaps the most distasteful is the drive to achieve some personal gain at the expense of others.

So it’s important to empathise with people who display negative political behaviour — what’s their drive and can their concerns be alleviated? Maybe they’re right?

There is, of course, always a point where people are either on board or they need to talk to HR about a change of tribe or a retirement plan.

That’s what I think…what do you think?

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Surviving Office Politics was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Screw it…let’s do it

Sun, 17 Sep 2017 20:53:00 GMT

Richard Branson wrote a quick-read book entitled Screw it let’s do it — about taking risks, believing in what you’re doing and loving what you do.

The title speaks to his risk-taking entrepreneurial attitude.

And…when Branson started Virgin Atlantic, he ring-fenced it not to take down his music business in the event of financial failure.

I read a post recently that claimed having a Plan B was to admit failure in advance. Nonsense. Not having a Plan B is a sign of hubris, arrogance or over-confidence.

Feel the fear and do it anyway (to borrow from Susan Jeffers )…but have a Plan B too.

That’s what I think…what do you think?

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Screw it…let’s do it was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On being a Successful Millennial

Thu, 18 May 2017 11:59:00 GMT

Get up early, work hard, strike oil.

That was J.P Getty’s formula for success. (Whether he was successful, apart from being extremely rich, may be a moot point.)

The first two may be relatively easy (get up early and work hard) and the third (strike oil) a matter of luck — or maybe not?

Actually I think Getty got it the wrong way around — at least in a modern, post-millennium, generation-y world.

Millennials need to strike oil first. The rest will follow.

By striking oil I don’t mean drilling a hole in the ground and hoping that the dark stuff sprays out the top of a tower. Nor do I mean being a billionaire before the age of 30 — although having some money helps.

Striking oil is about finding something you love doing; it’s about happening upon a great employer; or being your own employer; having a good boss; friendly colleagues; being in an interesting industry; having great clients; doing challenging work; being part of a team; contributing…making the world a better place.

Strike oil first — it makes getting up early and working hard a lot easier.

That’s what I think…what do you think?

If you’d like to join the conversation please share via the clapping-hands button below.

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#mindoftheorg

On being a Successful Millennial was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Let’s say there are four types of ‘mistake’ (but I may be mistaken):

Thu, 18 May 2017 11:48:00 GMT

Let’s say there are four types of ‘mistake’ (but I may be mistaken):

For behaviour that falls into the first category, creative encouragement may be needed to help the person get back on the horse . (‘Keep on trying Mr Edison, your ideas for making light from electricity may be useful one day.’) How many attempts people have, will be a judgement call arrived at in dialogue.

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” Steve Jobs

The second category should be quickly correctable — to err is human, to err repeatedly is a poor career move.

The oops events are unfortunate: the person concerned probably feels less than enthused by the mistake themselves. People who usually perform well and make an honest mistake are more likely to need positive encouragement to reduce residual stress, than they are to need corrective coaching.

There is another category of mistake: that of sabotage — active and passive. It arises when people, individually or as a group, feel threatened and manifests itself often in attempts to undermine decisions that have been taken. Not all people fit into all organizations, and for the saboteur maybe it’s time to talk with HR about a career change or an early retirement plan.

Distinguishing between the four types can be useful. What sort of mistakes do you make?

That’s what I think…what do you think?

Also at:

amazon.com | amazon.co.uk | bol.com | blog

Let’s say there are four types of ‘mistake’ (but I may be mistaken): was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Attitude is the invisible force behind the way we live our lives.”

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 14:54:00 GMT

(Plus 20 other quotes from my books)

These are 21 of my favourite quotes taken from my books on leadership, management and agility.

My favourite is number two. What’s yours? Quotes are from my books available at the links below.

That’s what I think…what do you think?

If you’d like to join the conversation please share via the clap button below.

Also at:

amazon.com | amazon.co.uk | bol.com | blog

#mindoftheorg #OnBeingAgile

“Attitude is the invisible force behind the way we live our lives.” was originally published in On Being Agile on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.