I think that one of the key roles of a leader is to train, mentor and develop your successors. I believe that there are strong personal and organisational reasons for doing so. In professional firms I have seen too often practice areas and clients wither on the vine or move firm because this has not been properly done, a partner retires and nothing has been done to secure their sucession. I know that will seem mad to some but I have seen it happen all too often
Decision making
Channel your fear
By Paul Hally on
I am no psychologist so the thoughts that follow are simply those of my personal experience. I was moved to write this article as I recently had an insight into when a fear might be holding back an individual and their organisation. I use the word fear loosely to mean any form of worry or concern that you may have. I think we all use these terms interchangeably, we talk of “fearing that something may happen”, when we may actually mean we are simply worried or concerned. I think I have lived with fear my whole life and I think it has served me well most of the time, making me alive to and to consider the downsides of any action, but I can also see those instances where it has paralysed me from taking appropriate action. Recognising your fears, addressing them and their cause and channeling them is, I think, the key.…
Active Listening
By Paul Hally on
Taking instructions is a bit like having a really good conversation, both involve actively listening to the other person. My father, who was a thoughtful man, once told me, we have two ears and one mouth for a reason and we should use them in the same ratio!
I was reminded of this when I listened recently to an excellent Ted talk by Celeste Headlee called “10 ways to have a better conversation”. I thoroughly recommend it to you. Her rules were very clear, I have summarised my interpretation of them each after the colon.…
Change your perspective
By Paul Hally on
What do you do if you cannot think of the answer?
I was out walking my dog on our usual loop early the other day. It is now dark in the morning so rather than do our normal anti-clockwise route we went clockwise to avoid the unlit part of the path early in the walk. Coming back on the unlit part once it had got light I was struck by how different the route seemed despite the number of times we had walked it in the other direction. It really struck me that there was a metaphor here for life and work.…