# Enterprisecoach > Navigating complex change ## Posts - [From battle lines to bottom line: the high cost of unaddressed conflict](https://enterprisecoach.net/leaders-addressing-workplace-conflict/): How coaching repaired a leadership rift and restored productivity By Ronnie Ndlovu It is difficult for leaders to address workplace conflict. When the conflict is between leaders at the same level, it can be even more difficult to get beyond defensiveness and blame. It can feel like trying to build a bridge in the midst of a swamp. What many organizations dismiss as an interpersonal issue is frequently a significant drain on performance. Here’s a real-life example involving two leaders of related service divisions of a large international services business where stakes are high. Things were getting bad between the [...] - [Empathy isn't soft. It's strong](https://enterprisecoach.net/empathy-isnt-soft-its-strong/): By Eslinda Hamzah Recently I facilitated a two-day leadership intensive in a serene retreat space just beyond the bustle of Cambodia’s cities. Twelve energy sector changemakers from diverse locales in the Asia Pacific region came together for two offsite days. Their purpose was beyond networking and strategizing. They came to engage in a deeper inquiry: who are they as leaders, in relation to others? They were invited to reflect not on titles or tactics, but on presence and impact—how they show up in the lives of those they lead, and how their leadership is felt and experienced. My role was [...] - [Making consequential decisions: where humans still have an edge over AI](https://enterprisecoach.net/making-consequential-decisions/): In Toronto at yesterday’s 15th annual graduation event for entrepreneurs supported by NEXT Canada, I was struck by chair Reza Satchu’s keynote: Leaders, your job is to make decisions of consequence, and take full accountability for those consequences. It’s the one chance humans still have to outperform AI. This rings true for me as an entrepreneur. It also strikes me that it is extremely relevant at all levels of more established organizations. There’s a kind of “thud factor” when a decision is really consequential. You feel it in your gut. While it can be surprisingly easy to avoid decisions, our [...] - [AI reshaping workforce: Leadership team responses](https://enterprisecoach.net/ai-reshaping-workforce-leadership-team-responses/): How does a global leadership team respond, when business success requires deep cuts in the workforce? As McKinsey said in January 2025, “leaders need to recognize their responsibility in driving gen AI transformation.”  How do you keep your best people to drive the transformation as you reshape your workforce in an AI world, while letting go their friends and colleagues? Everybody knows AI is reshaping the workforce, particularly among white collar workers. There’s a bloodbath in the making for people doing jobs that AI can take over. It’s appropriate that the human cost of this gets a lot of attention. [...] - [Shifting leadership culture in heavy industry](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 from the Enterprisecoach network took 60 senior and middle managers through three month program to develop their ability to hear all the voices in the system, have the hard conversations in a constructive and engaging way, and add a systemic team coaching dimension to their leadership. Situation before our involvement What people were saying: “If the oil hits the floor, you do what I say. There’s no time to talk – just get [...] - [Toronto's social entrepreneurs](https://enterprisecoach.net/torontos-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 for Social Innovation, including: Food upcyclers who transform “waste” from food production into inputs to other good food, such as sourdough bread made with barley leftover by beer making Carbon capture trackers holding the carbon credit trade to its promises by channeling investment to small scale tropical tree planters and tracking their [...] - [Inspired by the Dish with One Spoon](https://enterprisecoach.net/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, and Haudenosaunee, where nations entered into an agreement to protect the land and responsibly care for its resources in harmony together. Winter 2024 offer: Free coaching and mentorship for Canadian social entrepreneurs So in the spirit of sharing, I have joined the local Centre for Social Innovation which “catalyzes, inspires and [...] - [Creating space for change in business](https://enterprisecoach.net/creating-space-for-change-in-business/) - [What it really takes for Smart Collaboration](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 their businesses to really garner the dividends of smart collaboration. What’s needed is both the logical business case and the interpersonal skills to work effectively with people who are different from yourself – as well as organizational structures that support collaboration and reward collective work products. Solid data backing up the business [...] - [Sports star turns to leading systemic change](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 South Africa, via the parkrun movement. Free parkruns are getting South Africans out into parks, waterfronts and other natural areas to run and walk weekly for joy and good health – over sixty thousand participants across the country at over 120 locations just last weekend, for example. A leader [...] - [Human constellations: getting the bigger picture](https://enterprisecoach.net/human-constellations-getting-the-bigger-picture/) - [The true power of collaboration](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 that it is human nature to be narrowly selfish. Yet a bigger picture, going right back to the original roots of our species Homo sapiens in Africa, reveals just how much we are hard-wired for both collaboration and competition. What sets humans apart as a species As this month’s Scientific American cover [...] - [Generosity of spirit: a must-have for good business](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 business that is generative and life-affirming. Here’s one: a business leader who identifies generosity of spirit as a must-have in hiring talent for his companies. A success story of old media going digital Turning a profit and turning around an old-media publishing company going digital got David Bradley featured [...] - [Putting the concept of "retirement" on pension](https://enterprisecoach.net/putting-the-concept-of-retirement-on-pension/) - [Business coaching requires a systems approach](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 being coached.” Backed by a strong theoretical foundation and his wide and deep professional experience, he points out that “both the organization and the individual [or team] being coached are clients” – coaches need to work constantly with the duality of organization and coachee(s) as clients at the same [...] - [Virtual team coaching in action 2012](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 with people we never get to meet in the same room, build good relationships with them, and get the job done even though we are linked by little more than email, the internet and some form of phone or video connection. In addition to entirely new skills, working effectively in [...] - [Balancing task and relationship in business](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 interested colleagues and potential clients joining the conversation from around South Africa and France. We also used a shared whiteboard to keep the focus of the conversation in front of the dispersed participants. Faith Fuller has been working with teams and relationships at work for the last 18 years. [...] - [Leadership skills for global virtual teams](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 so (just look at what has happened to the oil price!), and the social networking generation assumes so. It is not easy working by phone, web and videoconference with people around the world you seldom if ever meet face to face in the same room. There is little or [...] - [For a Yes to be meaningful, you also need to say No](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 as we might be about when we say “no” and how we say it. Today’s post offers three tools to back you up in getting your “yes” to be more meaningful to others, and more aligned with your own true intentions. Saying “No” doesn’t mean I don’t like you [...] - [2012: Where is business coaching going?](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 to the times, or be crushed under the tightening belts of its clients. I’m a leadership coach because I know how much value coaching can bring to leaders – both in developing strategy and in leading people, as well as strengthening their personal foundations. I also understand why it is [...] - [Balancing freedom and control](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 and direction to their teams. Put more bluntly, leaders hold empowerment in one hand and control in the other. Most of us are better at one or other of these, and I for one will own up to powerful desires for both: I do like to control the world [...] - [Leadership and control](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 I can control has shrunk as their value has increased. I am now limited to big ticket items. Experiencing leadership at different levels Everyone faces the challenge of personal leadership. We are all challenged to find our true purpose on this earth and then channel more and more of [...] - [Burning off the fluff](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 flushes out some of the chaotic complexities that lurk inside all of us. And I find it helps me review the year gone by, and reassess my plans for the year ahead, from a new and valuable perspective. Leaders need alone time It’s a big part of leadership, too. [...] - [Exiting your business: the good news](https://enterprisecoach.net/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, create a legacy Your business loses value when it loses you. However, the cool thing is that you are standing at the brink of a huge profit opportunity. When you put new leaders in place who can run the business without you, you reverse the value destruction otherwise caused [...] - [Exiting your business: the bad news](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 the world, almost like your flesh and blood offspring, then you are probably wondering how to let it stand on its own feet and give you back your freedom. For years, your life has been on the line for your business. Now it is time to give space to [...] - [Music that connects us](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 – more than 35 musicians from at least four continents harmonising in an inspiring virtual global band, epitomising the connection of diverse and disparate humanity through music. South Africans featured include Vusi Mahlasela from Mamelodi, Sinamuva and Bhekani Memela choirs from Umlazi, and Pokei Klaas from Gugulethu on upright bass. [...] - [Eldership: Not just a scrapheap](https://enterprisecoach.net/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 heap. Yet there is no substitute for experience. Ability to see the big picture of life requires us to have lived for many decades. Appreciating that I am a human being rather than insisting on doing for my identity takes time to sink in. And there is a new power available to us [...] ## Pages - [About Ronnie Ndlovu](https://enterprisecoach.net/about-ronnie-ndlovu/): Ronnie Ndlovu Ronnie coaches both teams and individuals in business as well as not-for-profit and public sector organizations. His coaching services extend to private clients. Ronnie has been coaching for approximately 20 years. While continuing to provide executive coaching, his experience over the last ten years has included a considerable focus in helping teams in organizations build collaboration, alignment and productivity. Through group or team coaching access to development and growth is possible to people at all levels in an organization. Clients for individual and group/team-coaching and leadership development include Astron Energy, Compassionate Inquiry, Komatsu, Liberty Life, Mandela Rhodes Foundation, [...] - [About Eslinda Hamzah](https://enterprisecoach.net/about-eslinda-hamzah/) - [About Mish Middelmann](https://enterprisecoach.net/mish-middelmann/) - [About Dino Zafirakos](https://enterprisecoach.net/dino-zafirakos/): Dino Zafirakos Dino is an international coach and facilitator who accompanies CEOs, CXOs, boards and executive teams on journeys that are personal and collective. He is a truly global professional with a unique profile. He is an engineer by education and a serious Kendo practitioner. As a result, Dino brings a calm confidence and a gentle force to the table, being able to navigate even the most complex and difficult conversations among executives and board members. He is focused, practical, articulated and respectful. Greek origins, Australian upbringing, extensive travelling and living in different parts of the world give Dino a [...] - [Comments](https://enterprisecoach.net/comments/): Your comments are welcome! Please do join in the discussion. See the guidelines that follow for how to comment, and what constitutes acceptable usage. We can’t promise to respond to every comment but may do so from time to time. How to comment “Please share your comments” box at the bottom of each blog entry. Note the guidelines for commenting below. Please give your name (You may also use “anonymous”). Our Akismet anti-spam service requires you to enter your valid email address. The purpose is to protect us all from unwanted spam. See privacy policy for how the spam filter [...] - [Copyright](https://enterprisecoach.net/copyright/): Copyright Notice The contents of this website are copyright ©2007-2025 Mish Middelmann. All rights reserved. All trademarks mentioned herein belong to their respective owners. Unless identified with the designation “Copy Freely” or attributed to another source, the contents of this website are copyrighted by Mish Middelmann. Mish Middelmann hereby authorizes you to copy documents published by this website on the World Wide Web for non-commercial use within your organization and/or to inform others about the services offered in this website. In consideration of this authorization, you agree that any copy of these documents you make shall retain all copyright and [...] - [Social entrepreneurs and innovators](https://enterprisecoach.net/social-entrepreneurs-and-innovators/): Winter 2024 special offer to CSI social entrepreneurs and innovators I help leaders and changemakers be more effective in working with people, conflict and complexity And to get the heart of creating value If you want to excel at one or more of these: Create sustainable change by delivering not just value to your clients/communities, but what they really perceive as value and are therefore willing to pay for. What it takes to get into conversations about value with your customers. 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