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Being Valuable and Visible to the Organization are two different things

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  Are You Valuable and Visible? Being good at your job and being seen as ready for the bigger role are not the same thing. That gap explains a lot of career frustration. Some professionals create tremendous value but remain almost invisible outside their immediate team or function. Others become highly visible but the substance behind that visibility is thin. Neither position is sustainable. Career progression usually requires both: VALUE - The quality of contribution you make. And. VISIBILITY - The extent to which the right people understand that contribution. The interesting part is that these create four very different career situations. That’s a 2X2 matrix and you know how Consultants love their 2X2’s (been a change consultant for over 2 decades so 2X2s are inescapable) HIGH VALUE + LOW VISIBILITY You are trusted by the people closest to you, but senior decision-makers may not fully understand what you contribute. You become the organisation’s best-kept secret. HIGH VISIBILITY ...
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The 5 Time Assassins

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  Your calendar may not be overloaded because you have too much work. It may be overloaded because of how you behave when work reaches you. In the book ‘ Buy Back Your Time’ , author Dan Martell identifies 5 #TimeAssassins: 1.       The Staller waits for more certainty. 2.       The Speed Demon would rather do it himself than slow down and explain. 3.       The Supervisor delegates the task but keeps the control. 4.       The Saver protects money while consuming expensive leadership time. 5.       The Self-Medicator manages the stress created by overload without changing the system creating it. They are not all that bad actually … The Staller protects certainty. The Supervisor protects control. The Saver protects the feeling of being prudent. The Speed Demon protects momentum. Which means some time-management problems are not time problems at all. The...
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Speaking at the Future Tech Expo in Dubai

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  I am speaking at the FutureTech Expo today in Dubai  The speakers across the day will take the audience through the complete arc of Technology Trends > Industry Transformation > Cybersecurity, AI & Data Governance > Startup scaling > AI, Data & Emerging Technologies > AI Startups, Investment & Ecosystems > Leadership & Workforce Readiness > AI, Automation, Digital Skills & Workforce Transformation > Ethics, Governance & Long-Term Impact I have 2 opportunities to share my thoughts: 1. As a Panelist on the "Global Expansion of Tech Startups - Strategies for Scaling Beyond the World" panel; I will be sharing the stage with Charmaine Paris and Owen SP Sanchez CbMP, PMP, PME, MHRM, SHRM and Alnura B. I bring my AlwayzON lens to this topic. At AlwayzON, we are building the world's first always-ON Venture Access Infrastructure helping businesses with access to customers, capital, innovation and growth through global exposure and ...
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Promotions can be deceptive

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  Everyone understands that the role changes as they climb the corporate ladder.  And they yearn for Leadership positions at the top. They miss out on the fact that Leadership starts at the bottom rung.  If they do realise that, they assuming that the next level is simply more of the same leadership, at a larger scale. It isn’t. As leadership scope expands, the job itself changes. You move from: Leading Self   Managing your own performance, discipline, judgment and credibility. to Leading Individuals / a Team   Creating direction, trust, accountability, feedback and development. to Leading Multiple Teams   Leading through other leaders, aligning priorities, creating operating rhythm and reinforcing culture. to Leading Cross-Functional Systems   Managing interfaces, trade-offs, competing priorities and dependencies across functions you may not control directly. to Leading a Business Unit   Balancing customers, people, opera...
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The #UncomfortableCoach and The #FilmyCoach

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  I set out to establish myself as The #ClarityCoach. People around me had other ideas. They made me The #UncomfortableCoach and The #FilmyCoach. And, increasingly, I have realised that #UncomfortableCoach probably explains and justifies  #ClarityCoach.  Because clarity is not always comfortable.  - Sometimes clarity means recognising that the problem is not your team. It is YOU. - Sometimes it means admitting that the business model you have protected for years no longer works. - Sometimes it means accepting that your greatest strength has quietly become your biggest limitation. - Sometimes it means confronting the conversation you have successfully avoided for six months. - And sometimes it means answering the question: “If you already know what you need to do… why haven’t you done it?” That is where coaching gets interesting. There is an old idea that "Success lies outside your comfort zone". As a coach, I take that further and higher. A coach’s job is not merely ...
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Controlled Demolition of Leadership, Change Mgmt and Coaching

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16.8 seconds - That is how long it took for Seattle’s Kingdome to come down in a controlled implosion.  But it took months of engineering to build up to those spectacular seconds of that phenomenal event.  Months of engineering went into  - understanding the structure,  - identifying critical load-bearing points,  - drilling thousands of charge holes and  - sequencing the detonations precisely. The explosives did not really destroy the building. They removed the right supports,  in the right sequence, a t the right time. Gravity did the rest. This ... set off some charges in my head too :)  Life, Business, Career and Leadership are pretty much like that.  Coaching too. But in a constructive manner.  This is how a great deal of meaningful work happens. We see the 16 seconds. We rarely see the months behind it. We watch a two-hour film. We do not see the years of writing, financing, casting, rehearsals, retakes, editing, production design ...
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The Phenomenon of Collision with Reality

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The phenomenon of "Collision with Reality" has a name  “The Carnoustie Effect is the degree of mental and psychic shock experienced on collision with reality by those whose expectations are founded on false assumptions.” The phrase emerged after the 1999 Open Championship at Carnoustie, when the world’s best players, many of whom were used to manicured and relatively windless courses, were frustrated by the unexpected difficulties of the Carnoustie links golf course. On the other hand, the 'local players' faced no such difficulty since it was 'normal' for them.  This being a psychological term, it applies to disillusionment in any area of life, not just golf. I came across the term "CARNOUSTIE Effect" back in 2021 and it keeps coming back to me in different contexts time and again. In fact, it is a remarkably accurate description of what happens to Leaders and Founders. A senior hire looks ideal. A team is assumed to be aligned. A new market seems...
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