decision making

How good is your decision making in a crisis?

Publication: | |

Decisions are all around us. Some are big. Others are small. Some have minor consequences, and some – if wrong – have catastrophic outcomes. There’s no more stark reminder of this than watching and reading about bushfires and examining the decisions people make under extreme stress and during a crisis. ABC TV’s new drama – Fires – […]

Decision making isn’t one size fits all

Publication: | |

Many years ago, I worked for someone who based their entire decision-making framework on the catchphrase – ‘A quick decision’s a good decision’. Sometimes this approach worked in their favour, and other times, it left them undone. Decision-making is never one size fits all. It operates on a continuum based on the issue’s simple or […]

How effective is your organisation’s decision-making?

Publication: | |

When thinking about poor organisational decision-making, what springs to mind? Iconic strategic failures such as Kodak and Blockbuster or systemic risk failures like BP Deepwater Horizon or Esso Longford Gas Explosion? Or perhaps it’s something more recent and closer to home. Often when we think about inadequate or ineffective decision making we think about significant […]

Institute of Managers and Leaders: How to conduct successful performance reviews remotely

Publication: | | |

In this article for the Institue of Managers and Leaders, Michelle outlines several factors when deciding how and when to conduct performance reviews as so many of us are now working remotely. Debates about performance reviews – their purpose and impact – take on new intensity during a pandemic and when uncertainty, change, and remote […]

Is it time to suck the marrow?

Publication: | |

Bored? In a rut? Hate your job? But you have a dilemma.You don’t want to leave where you work. It could be that you like the organisation’s culture or work colleagues or personal circumstances mean it’s not a good time to shift roles. What do you do when you don’t enjoy your work, but you […]

Why you need to seek out what’s different

Publication: | |

By the time you read this article you are likely to have already done a myriad of things – many of which were based on your habits. Humans are habitual creatures, who are comfortable with routine. However, our habits and routines aren’t just about what we do. They are also about how we think and […]

The unexpected benefits of waiting

Publication: | |

We live in a time of immediacy. We want everything in an instant. Don’t know something? Google it. Want something? Order it. I was reminded of this desire for immediacy following our recent trip to the Northern Territory (yes, I was luckily already away before the most recent Melbourne lockdown). After the trip, I was […]

What rules do you need to break?

Publication: | |

I was chatting with a musician recently about how he learned to play jazz. He told me that one of the most complicated aspects is that your playing gets worse as you learn more technical skills before you get better. He explained how one of the critical parts of successful jazz playing is improvisation, but […]

Are you on the right treadmill?

Publication: | |

People often talk about happiness as though it’s a commodity – something to buy, seek out and ultimately secure. This searching for happiness becomes the focal point, shunning feelings of unhappiness or anything that doesn’t make them happy. It’s true that happiness matters, but it’s more complicated than just searching for happiness in personal and professional […]

What are you role modelling?

Publication: | |

Recently, the eldest boy of family friends was showing his younger brother how to do something. It was fascinating, and at times slightly comical, to watch as he demonstrated the action, and then his younger brother emulated the action step by step. The younger brother wasn’t thinking about what to do; whether it was the […]