Elegy for Ellie
I sat with Ellie as she gently slipped into a deep sleep today. In fact, I had slept with her, worked with her, and cried with her for much of the last week. ‘Slipped’; ‘fell asleep’; ‘passed away’. So many euphemisms to avoid the difficulty, the permanency. What I mean is that Ellie died. For […]
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously
The somewhat bizarre title of this post is a quote from the influential linguistics professor, Noam Chomsky, in his 1957 book “Syntactic Structures”. In the book, he presented this sentence as an example of a grammatically well-formed but semantically nonsensical sentence. He used it to illustrate the distinction between syntax and semantics, two key components […]
Anxiety – a leadership birth pang?
I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on anxiety – its antecedents, its presentation, its impacts. It is perhaps not surprising. I don’t feel particularly anxious – at least not at a conscious level. But it is ‘in the air’. Be it the insidious impacts of a struggling economy, the sense of impending doom from escalating […]
Shared experience
I made a new friend yesterday on a plane. We bonded over a shared experience when our business class airline seats failed to turn into beds on our flight back from Rwanda – a very first-world problem, I acknowledge. We were complete strangers in Kigali – 4,000 miles later in London we had found common […]
Seneca’s lament
My last post was written in the magical city of Rome, that wonderful nexus of the old and the new, bustling with noisy life yet infused with the calm perspective of ages past. That city above all, confronts me with the dialectical worldviews of old and new, the paradoxical emphases of the ages, the cultural […]
When in Rome …
I’m very fortunate to be writing this in Italy in the beautiful and ancient city of Rome. Anyone who has ever had the joyful opportunity to visit this place will comment on its inspiring atmosphere, it’s ability to link the old with the new, to transcend the centuries. Being here at Easter makes this all […]
I don’t have the capacity …
How often do I find myself using that phrase – “I don’t have the capacity”? To be honest, I normally only use it to myself, in response to external requests for attention and in the context of meaning I’m overstretched, I don’t have the time, my bandwidth is maxed out. I don’t often enough use […]
How do I show up?
I’ve been reflecting a lot with colleagues and clients in recent months about the challenges of capacity building in leadership, not least in the VUCA-dominated, fast-paced world of the emerging digital leader. The particularities of the leadership challenges faced by – and, therefore, capabilities required of – digital leaders are worthy of a more detailed […]
Innovation Africa 2023
It is now two months since I had the privilege to represent Imcon Consulting at the Innovation Africa Ministerial Summit 2023 in Kigali as one of forty five invited Summit Partners. I’ve now had the opportunity to reflect on the themes and impact of the summit, and it seems timely to share these thoughts with […]
The habit of excellence
In our fast-paced, driven, and demanding work environment, the innate desire to succeed (present in many of us) can find heightened expression. Often this can manifest serious consequences for wellbeing. ‘Try harder’ becomes the self-imposed, if not externally driven, mantra. To an extent this is reasonable and appropriate. To an extent! However, it begs many […]
