Finding your WHY is significant. But we need more than the mission!

If you or your team are leaning heavily on your connection to your organisation's purpose to stay motivated, this one's for you.

Find out how to spread your 'what movitates you' eggs across multiple baskets.

Why reversing a camper trailer can feel like the ultimate pressure test.

I'm taking you right out of the office for the next few minutes, into the great outdoors, the big sky and starry nights. Trust me, if you can pass this pressure test, you can take these tips into any high-stakes scenario.

How good does it feel to have a full belly laugh? The kind where you lose control, the tears stream, and you even risk peeing a little.

What about belting out your favourite songs in the car? Experimenting with a new hobby?

It’s fun. It’s joyful. It’s the safety advantage – and it’s all about conditions and relationships.

The uncontrolled laughing – you’re with friends, you have tissues nearby, and you have spare knickers if you need them. The belting out the tunes – the car windows are rolled up, and you’ll take a pause when you pull up at the lights.

In these situations, you’ve set the conditions around you to feel psychologically safe.

How many times have you been in crisis mode and felt like you’re the only one who can save the organisation and the people within it?

When you’re constantly firefighting, it’s exhausting and it’s unsustainable for us mere mortals.

It sounds more like the stuff of superheroes. So, let’s go there!

This newsletter issue is about the old Chinese concept of Yin and Yang, and what it can teach us about the tension between frontline and back-office teams in service organisations. Not as competing forces, but as interdependent ones - each needing the other to function well.

The instincts that made you successful as a manager will quietly limit you as an executive.

There’s no upgrade when you step into a senior role. No new operating system. No reset button (not yet anyway!).

Small but mighty, the pause has the power to build connection, harmony (internally and externally), and systems. Without it, we risk de-stabilising all of it.

What if the best succession planning lessons come from parenting? I mean, in both cases we are effectively working ourselves out of a job, so there must be similarities, right? 

You got the funding/grant/pitch approved! Congratulations 🥳. Now you just need to deliver the project with a team who is already at capacity!! Argh!!

While we rarely get through life without hard-earned lessons, some people get to practice emotional intelligence in a structured way, find it embedded in culture, and learn from non-traditional mentors and experiences.

This was my experience when I started working in the disability sector in 2009 and was immediately immersed in a deeply embedded person-centred approach to supporting others.