COLIN ON CULTURE
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Friendships at work are optional
Friendships can greatly benefit teamwork, but respecting each other is more important
Truth without the thorns
Lose the jargon and communicate with directness because when your team know where they stand they feel safer.
Laughter
Life can be a pretty serious business so take the opportunity to lean in to laughter. It’s good for you!
Facts matter
When leaders make decisions based on facts they build trust and reinforce the culture they want to see.
Emotionally excellent
It takes more than technical skills to build a team and create a culture.
Won’t AI just make employees lazy?
To be successful, AI implementation must be part of a broader evolution of the existing culture, with good practice principles agreed in advance.
Space for everyone
We don’t all work the same so why do we persist with culture killing monolithic office spaces?
Communication: the key to success
Communication permeates every aspect of our working lives. From explaining strategies, crafting compelling presentations and negotiating deals to resolving conflicts and building trust-based relationships. Effective communication shapes outcomes at every turn.
A case of the Mondays
We all have bad days but your mood is contagious and spreading negativity is a culture killer.
The Five Levels of Management Mastery
Middle managers are the difference between organisation success and failure and yet most managers lack the training to make a real difference every day. I share my experiences to help fast-track your learning.
Saying no
One of the best skills we can learn, therefore, is the ability to say ‘no’ and sometimes, ‘no’ is a complete sentence. That’s not to say that we deliver the message rudely or with attitude, indeed the opposite is true.
Agency, the culture secret
When employees are given the opportunity to define their own working conditions — how they connect, behave, work together and be creative — they gain not only a sense of pride in what they’ve built, but also a determination to uphold it.
Anchored in the past
The stories in your culture will determine whether you sail or sink.
The quote that never was
In every office, every sports team, every startup, every Fortune 500 company, we've seen it happen. The perfect strategy, meticulously planned, beautifully presented... and it falls flat. Not because the strategy was wrong, but because the people weren't ready.
Cynics and sceptics
What’s the difference and why does it matter for your workplace culture?
Is it still worth doing?
The real measure of a project isn't the resources it consumes but the value that the change creates. When we fixate on time and cost, we optimise activity for predictability instead of possibility.
Entitled or just badly managed?
There’s a trend for CEOs to blame ‘entitled’ employees for the resistance to returning to the office - but take a look in the mirror and you’ll see a lack of managerial skill reflected.
Potential has no expiry date
It’s never too late to learn that new skill, try that new thing or achieve your burning ambition! What’s stopping you starting?
If you can't stand the heat
The culinary (and corporate) world has long perpetuated the myth that enduring abuse is somehow a badge of honour, a rite of passage that transforms good chefs and leaders into great ones.
Loading luggage in an ice-storm
The most memorable leaders are the ones who aren’t afraid to park strategy in order to get stuck in at the coalface.