Enterprisecoach blog
This is a place to share experiences and ideas. We share stories of the work we do around the world. Because we don’t advocate a cookie-cutter approach to the people dimension of your business leadership, you will find a variety of different challenges and journeys described here.
Shifting leadership culture in heavy industry
Client: Major international oil company Problem: How to get more out of our people without relaxing the tight controls our industry needs Enterprisecoach contribution: Mish and Ronnie took 60 senior and middle managers through three month programme to develop their ability to hear all the voices in the system, have the [...]
Toronto’s social entrepreneurs
I’m inspired by Toronto’s social entrepreneurs. As Keita Demming would say, we could drop the “social” epithet and recognize that they are really just good entrepreneurs, who understand that innovation and business success must serve people and planet. Over the last month I’ve met so many inspiring people at the Centre [...]
Inspired by the Dish with One Spoon
Having recently arrived in Canada, I am inspired by the first people of this land who created a wampum (covenant) called The Dish with One Spoon. And grateful to meet so many people here in what was first called “T'karonto” who are moved to honour this treaty made between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas, [...]
Creating space for change in business
Just over ten years ago, I sold my shares in the hi-tech business I had co-founded, and stepped out of the founder-CEO role. Recently I asked the buyer (who took over as CEO) to look back on the time of negotiating my departure and his takeover. Since then he and [...]
What it really takes for Smart Collaboration
Business cases for smart collaboration abound, yet genuine creative collaboration in business is remarkably rare. As Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School Heidi Gardner PhD points out in her forthcoming book Smart Collaboration, people need to collaborate across a variety of specializations as well as personal and cultural differences for them and [...]
Sports star turns to leading systemic change
Long distance runners worldwide know Bruce Fordyce. He's famous for winning the 89 kilometre (55 mile) Comrades Ultramarathon 8 times in a row, and nine times in total. He is quite simply a legendary athlete on the global stage. Yet he is creating a bigger legacy as a systems-inspired leader in [...]
Human constellations: getting the bigger picture
Last week it was brought home to me just how important constellations are as the language of humans in relationship. A group of relatively new South African systems coaching practitioners was meeting on Skype, coming from a variety of dimensions of our world – working in the cities and the [...]
The true power of collaboration
We grew up in an era dominated by individualism and competition. These human traits have driven the accumulation of wealth, power and technological advancement and taken the world to a place where we stare into an abyss of global inequality and conflict. Many decisions are still being made on the assumption [...]
Generosity of spirit: a must-have for good business
My Dad was an optimist about business. When I was young and hotheaded, I remember explaining to him how wrong he was. And I still think business is not all sweetness and light. And yet, maybe thanks to Dad, I prick up my ears every time I hear a story about [...]
Putting the concept of “retirement” on pension
I heard an investment ad this week saying "you only get 480 paycheques in the average lifetime - followed by 300 paydays with no paycheque." As if life is divided between a monolithic earning phase followed by an equally uninterrupted spending phase. What a crazy idea! This model is OVER [...]
Business coaching requires a systems approach
Reading Marc Simon Kahn's brilliant new book, Coaching on the Axis, I am struck by the crucial role of a systemic approach in business coaching. It is necessary to ensure that business coaching results in "the promotion of success at all levels of the organization by affecting the actions of those [...]
Virtual team coaching in action 2012
This is a case study of team coaching in a 'virtual team' environment - where the coach and the team members are scattered around the globe and all calling in to a teleconference line. Some new skills are needed to work effectively in 'virtual teams.' We need to learn to work [...]
Balancing task and relationship in business
This is a combined text/audio posting based on a fascinating live interview with Faith Fuller, President and co-founder of CRR Global, Inc on the topic of Relationship Systems and South African Business. In keeping with our recent focus on global virtual teams, we held the interview via teleconference from Johannesburg to San Francisco, with [...]
Leadership skills for global virtual teams
It's 2012 and the era of the global virtual team is upon us. Whether we like it or not, more and more work teams are going to be global and virtual – i.e. made up of geographically separated members who still want to work together – because money and ecology say [...]
For a Yes to be meaningful, you also need to say No
Saying "No" can be hard. Yet without a good solid daily dose of "No", it becomes pretty meaningless to say "Yes." Too many yes's leave a person overloaded with so many promises that eventually they can't all be kept. Most people know this intellectually, but not all of us are as clear [...]
2012: Where is business coaching going?
Market conditions demand us all to examine how to deliver greater value for less cost. And now we find ourselves in a recession. The wonderful thing about recessions is that they offer us the stark choice: do what is most valuable, or perish. Coaching is no different – it must adapt [...]
Balancing freedom and control
Leadership is not all about control. Nor is it all about democracy. Leaders are called upon in equal measure to hold the space for others in the group, and to give direction to the group. In other words, leaders both facilitate the emergence of leadership in their teams, and give guidance [...]
Leadership and control
This is about what changes as we go up the leadership ladder in organizations. I have found that the higher I go up the corporate ladder, the less detail I can control. It sometimes feels as if my control "budget" has shrunk, but the truth is that the number of things [...]
Burning off the fluff
I’m just back from five nights alone in the hills of Retief’s Kloof in the Magaliesberg mountains near Johannesburg, South Africa. I feel deeply refreshed, energized and alive to new possibilities. There is something about alone time that burns off the fluff, helps get down to what is really important, and [...]
Exiting your business: the good news
You got to be a business leader by turning obstacles into opportunities, and exiting your business is another challenge you will succeed at. You might find the process takes you to new levels of emotional maturity. I'm sure you will find it harrowing and exhilarating at the same time. Create value, [...]
Exiting your business: the bad news
You've put your heart and soul into growing, building and fighting for this business for years now. Yet you realize it is time to go - soon. How separate are you and your business - really? If your business is a part of you, an expression of who you are in [...]
Music that connects us
Whenever there is great art, there is a piece of heaven - Surendra Shrestra, tabla player from Nepal For the past four years a small film crew has been traveling the world with recording equipment and cameras in search of inspiration. The film below is an example of their output - [...]
Eldership: Not just a scrapheap
Facing up to getting old often brings feelings of shrinking, ending, being over the hill. Finding energy flagging, body sagging, milestones behind rather than in front leaves the go-go-go energy in us freaking out. In many cultures, being “old” is enough to have you literally or metaphorically slung on the scrap [...]