Reconnecting Your People Across Generations and Cultures is the Ultimate Competitive Advantage
In the modern corporate landscape, we often obsess over digital transformation, AI integration, and the latest agile methodologies. Yet, amidst this relentless pursuit of technological efficiency, a fundamental, human-centric mechanism of success remains overlooked: the capability to connect. Reflecting on nearly two decades of observing global business, the trend is undeniable. Organisations...
Navigate Uncertainty Based on Better Feedback Loops
In today’s business landscape, the era of command-and-control leadership has ended. Executive teams now operate in an environment demanding agility, transparency, and a profound connection to the workforce. Senior leaders provide the northstar for the organisation; however, effective guidance requires accurate, real-time intelligence. Often, the feedback loops from the wider organisation to the...
Mastering Difficult Conversations: Introducing Alex the Sales Director, Your New Digital Challenge
After five years of driving impactful change with Hive17 Advisory, I am thrilled to unveil an entirely new chapter: Hive17 Tools . Our vision is providing actionable, hands-on resources that empower managers and leaders to elevate their daily operations. Today, we take the first leap into this future with the launch of Alex the Sales Director .
Constructive Feedback Enabling Autonomy and Continuous Learning
In today’s business world, the quest for peak organisational performance is perpetual. At Hive17 we advocate a People-First Work Culture, yet how to truly embed the mechanisms for continuous improvement in your leadership initiatives? The answer lies in transforming the often-dreaded process of giving and receiving feedback into a foundational business capability.
The Unspoken Success Factor: Placing Culture at the Heart of M&A
Mergers, acquisitions, and divestments are strategic endeavours that are often meticulously planned around financial models, technical integrations, and procedural alignments. Yet, time and again, the value promised by these transactions erodes, frequently because of one critical oversight: the insufficient consideration of People and Culture. At the recent IMAA Post-Merger Integration Conference...
Are you Choosing between ‘Kind' and 'Right'? The Strategic Advantage of People-First Leadership
Let’s be honest, in the C-suite, there’s a persistent, whispered question: Does truly effective leadership force a choice between ‘being kind’ and ‘doing the right thing’? For too long, the default answer has been a resigned nod towards the latter, accepting that success requires a certain ‘hardness’. At Hive17, we think that choosing between ‘kind’ and ‘right’ is asking the wrong question ....
Beyond the 'Visionary' Leader: The Power of Decentralisation
We often hear the argument that centralised, totalitarian systems are inherently faster, more efficient, and better equipped to navigate dynamic environments. The belief is that a single, visionary leader can cut through bureaucracy, making swift decisions based on superior insight. Yet, history - and contemporary failures - tell a different story. This reliance on the ‘dominant Tiger leader’...
From Power Play to High-Performing Ecosystems: Cooperation as the New Competitive Edge
When I look around me today, it often feels like the loudest voices belong to the power-hungry. Narcissistic leaders, both in nations and corporations, seem to dominate the conversation, setting the rules and employing the bully's playbook. It’s easy to conclude that Darwin’s "survival of the fittest" is the only law that truly matters - the inevitable 'law of the jungle'. However, this...
The Ownership Crisis: Why Your Talent is Quitting the Bureaucratic Grind
Do we need a hierarchical structure? Yes. Do we need to be compliant? Yes. Is it good to be data-driven? Yes. Bureaucracy, at its core, is an information technology and it is essential for enabling larger organisations to function by providing necessary structure, compliance, and data-driven decision-making. These are not inherently bad things. Are we getting frustrated with bureaucracy? Yes!...
The New Leadership Focus: Mastering Strategy Execution
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? That moment when the latest deck lands from HQ, thick with glossy slides detailing the new Global Strategy. It's bold, it's ambitious, and it’s meant to be the Northstar for the next three years. As a Regional Managing Director, you pore over it, nod along to the high-level vision, but then the familiar anxiety creeps in. The strategy feels... half-baked. It...
Let's Celebrate Inclusion on the International Women's Day
Yesterday, we celebrated International Women's Day – a day to reflect on the progress we've made and the work that still lies ahead to create a more diverse workforce that is practising inclusion in order to achieve a more equitable workplace. In today's world, DEI isn't just about gender, ethnicity, age, and other attributes we might want to give people. It's about viewing our world in all its...
Calming Down the Obsession for Uncertainty - Start a New Freedom
Let's be honest, we hear the word "uncertainty" everywhere, right? Global politics, the economy, technology - it all feels like a giant, wobbly Jenga tower. It seems that uncertainty has become the stress factor du jour, constantly hyped up by the media and maybe even by ourselves (I am guilty as charged!). We talk about how bad it is and how stressed we are. But what if we’re missing something?...
Time to Let Go: Six Leadership Truths for the Modern CEO
Remember that moment when you first stepped into a top leadership role? Perhaps as a General Manager (GM) or a Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Suddenly, the job wasn't about being the smartest person in the room or the best functional expert anymore. It felt like a fundamental shift, didn’t it? In a recent post, I explored this very evolution: the transition from 'functional expert' to the...
From Curiosity to Self-Praise: The Strategy for Ownership and Growth
Today's senior leaders face a critical business challenge: a global workforce drowning in anxiety. Economic instability, the 'always-on' nature of hybrid work, and the unsettling rise of AI and automation have created an epidemic of burnout and job insecurity. This is not just a mental health crisis; it's a productivity risk, an innovation killer, and a primary driver of high turnover, especially...
Defining Your Leadership Team's Raison D'être: Addressing the Silent Inhibitor of Success
Have you ever stopped to ask your management team the simplest, yet most profound question: "Why do we exist as a team?" As a facilitator, I recently had the privilege of guiding the Sika Vietnam leadership team through this exact inquiry. The air in the room, initially thick with the daily pressures of EBITDA targets, sales forecasts, and operational firefighting, soon began to shift. We weren't...
People-First Work Cultures: The New Blueprint for Success
In today’s complex, fast-moving global economy, the traditional 'command-and-control' leadership model is showing its age. As organisations navigate continuous transformation, a new blueprint is emerging - one centred on human potential, connection, and purpose: the People-First Work Culture. This isn't just a feel-good philosophy; this is of strategic importance. Research consistently shows that...
Unleashing Potential: Cultivating a Connected Leadership Team at Sika Vietnam
The journey towards sustainable, high-impact growth for any organisation is intrinsically linked to the strength and unity of its leadership. We at Hive17 were privileged to partner with the Sika Vietnam’s Management Team for an intensive two-day Leadership Development Workshop, a program designed to reinforce team cohesion and build future-proof leadership capabilities necessary for their...
From Functional Expert to Cross-Functional Glue: A General Management Mindset Shift
Climbing the corporate ladder to become a General Manager (GM) is a significant undertaking. After years spent excelling in one or two functional areas, the new GM is suddenly expected to grasp the complexities of the entire business. The pressure to make well-informed decisions across diverse departments can feel overwhelming. However, a consistent pattern emerges among successful leaders who...
Debugging Our Systems: Why We Must Adopt the Lean OS Now
Last week in Saigon, I had the privilege of attending the Anphabe conference, a powerful event that served as an urgent wake-up call for every executive concerned with talent, innovation, and performance. The central theme was clear: there is a dangerous chasm between what our employees want and how our organisations operate. We are running on antiquated operational systems that are resulting in...
Step Down to Step Up - Unlocking Performance by Meeting on the Same Eye Level
Building a genuinely people-centric work culture starts with a surprisingly simple yet profound shift: meeting everyone on the same eye level . It means leaders intentionally step down from the hierarchical perch and join the team as a partner, not a judge. Let’s look at this everyday scenario illustrating how we can be stuck in the parent-child trap. A team member, Sarah, brings a thorny problem...