How to unleash potential? Ditch top-down leadership
For years, people have known me as an advocate for flat organisational structures, delegation of control and decision-making, and for removing traditional hierarchies. In a recent conversation I have shared two key reasons why ditching traditional, top-down leadership styles can give you huge benefits. Most of us are aware that being a directive and micro-managing boss creates frustration,...
Leadership is the Driving Force for Success - Here are the 7 Trends for 2024
How are you making sure your organisation is dedicated to the same direction, stays strongly engaged to move forward and your teams are striving to give their best ? Great leadership is without doubt the (not so) secret recipe to lasting success. It creates the resilience to go through uncertain times and enables the necessary transformations. What do you need to lookout for in 20204? Swiss...
Collect the drive from your teams - Organisational Energy
This year might become a tough year and there might not be much we can do about it - especially about the external and geopolitical aspects. What we can focus on as a leader is to equip the organisation and enable our teams to give their best . And one special aspect is Energy! Organisational Energy is what I want to talk about today. How often do we feel that work is draining our energy? That...
Enabling Teams to Give Their Best - It starts at the Top
Enabling teams to give their best - When I approach CEOs with this topic, they almost always think this is important for the teams reporting to them. Yes, the operations team needs to work more effectively. That business unit needs a boost in productivity. In the organisation, the different functions need to work closer together across the silos. While these are important areas for improvement,...
Corporate Democracy? Innovation plus People plus Results!
Most companies are stuck in their corporate patterns: large overhead costs and bureaucratic burdens; a focus on short-term results; an inert workforce following a handful of leaders; exposure to bias and unfairness. We sort of know it is wrong, but we don't have the means to change to the better. Except for one company! Very few people heard of the company Gore (mainly famous for its Gore-Tex...
How Fragile are Your Leadership Skills?
What are the two most important and sought after leadership skills in Asia ? Based on the research of GloCoach, they identified the two following skills: Team Leadership - how are you enabling your teams to give their best Communicate with credibility - how are you building trust and win-win within your ecosystem From our practice at Hive17 we can only underline the value of these two leadership...
Foundation to Deliver Excellent Customer Value - The Human Operating System
The purpose of any organisation is to successfully deliver value to their customers . The range of customers might be wide and the definition of value and success might greatly vary. Though, in essence that is it. And rightfully, companies are focusing their efforts on selling, producing and delivering their products and solutions. Recently, there have been new questions and barriers appearing in...
Key Words for Sustainability - Honesty, Frugality, Courage, Synergy
This week we had another great Sustainability event in Singapore - organised by Lufthansa Group. While the airline industry overall is struggling to curb carbon emissions, it is great to see that one important player is striving forward on their sustainability journey. Maybe the most prominent technology is AeroShark - a nature-inspired film that is reducing the friction and drag of a plane's...
How do You Enable the Translation from Vision to Action?
Our current times are full of change and a solid strategy is necessary to give the organisation direction and alignment to create lasting success. Furthermore, a meaningful and clear vision is driving motivation and is a strong ingredient for making decisions. Yet, many companies struggle to bring their vision to the ground. Employees are saturated with changing strategies and often don't see how...
Overcoming Employee Inertia? With Accountability & Ownership
Hands up who struggles with people that just do the minimum work? Yes, you are not alone. And it is frustrating to see the potential in people not being used to bring success for the company, for the team and for the individual. Your organisation might have great team bonding and a lot of fun. How well does this translate that everyone is giving their best? In my experience, being a nice and kind...
Leveraging Your Entire Workforce to Accelerate Your Sustainability Journey
In my role as co-chairs of the SwissCham Climate Tech subcommittee, I had the honour to host a CSO Roundtable. We brought together industry leaders in Singapore to share their experience about how we can accelerate our sustainability journeys based on mindset shifts and organisational structures. With a new format that brought the panel very close to a small audience, all people in the room...
Your Sustainability Journey has Started - Are You Also Creating Impact?
Yes, in the last months we have achieved a lot. The majority of companies have defined sustainability targets and they are concerned about creating their ESG report. Though, we also need to be honest with ourselves: this is only talk and we need action - a lot of action - to reach global success in turning around climate change! “57% of CEOs identify unclear ROI and economic benefits as a leading...
Engaging with Talents - what are the quantitative benefits?
There are many reasons why companies are embarking on their sustainability journey. Some of you might know that I advocate focusing on the business opportunity of climate change actions - instead of the compliance perspective. Let's look at one part of that story: Attracting & Retaining Talents . Recently I have encountered a set of companies that are primarily motivated to engage in...
How long do you want to run your business? Another 10 years?
It never seems to stop - people around me are rushing deadlines, month-end closures and are stuck in one "burning platform" after another. I feel many people are stuck in immediate return, the quick buck and focus on financial returns (of the month, the day, the minute?). How does this lead to long-term success? Apparently not. In my observation, this short-term focus is getting more ingrained in...
Is Leadership Like Dragging a Huge Rock Behind You?
Since a decade or so, it has been a good measure to involve people, ask for their opinion, and get them engaged in most company decisions and initiatives. This is intended to cultivate intrinsic motivation and a more enjoyable workplace . Now, we look back and think: what went wrong? The employees don't see how their contributions have been considered in the decision making process, coordination...
Delegating Power? Here is Why
People often see me as an evangelist for letting go of control. What I mean by this is a leadership style that is focusing on creating a platform and an environment for the organisation to be successful . Basically that is less of 'command & control' and more of 'facilitate & guide. In practical terms, this is delegating the relevant decision making power to the front. Ok, nice. "I agree with the...
Change Management is the Umbrella for all your Innovation, Excellence and Leadership Campaigns
We heard this many times: Change is Everywhere! We are continuously advancing, improving, tinkering and even disrupting our own products, operations and organisational models. Recent conversations, studies and experiences confirmed this again: to be successful with these initiatives, we need to bring people together and enable an effective collaboration. "We build people; and these people build...
Preparing the Soil for Flourishing Growth
One of my past time activities is tending to a garden and growing plants. This requires preparing the soil, nurturing to the seedlings, watering regularly (not too much, not too little), checking on pest and allowing the right amount of sunshine. In short, creating an environment where the plants can flourish! This is how we look at change management at Hive17 Consulting. We aspire to create an...
Magic Pill #2 - Bridging Silos
One observation I made over the past years is that there seems to be a growing gravitation towards focus on individual work. This not only establishes silo mentality and makes collaborating across departments, geographies and hierarchical levels more difficult. This also stimulates individualism within teams; a blame culture is nurtured and the spirit of working together fades away. Elements that...
Hybrid Workplace - Test your Leadership Qualities
The New Year has started - we refueled our energy and are excited what 2022 will bring for us? Let's get into it! Here in Singapore, one immediate topic: how to get the people back to the office! Government regulations allow to raise office space occupancy to 50%; let's fill up our physical workplace again! Are these the right questions and intentions? Owl Labs shares in their annual report...