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LEADERSHIP: AVOIDING BLACK-SWAN DISEASE

published:2010-07-26 01:00:00

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the best-selling economist and author of The Black Swan, is famous for his arresting insights. His recent postscript to The Black Swan is no exception: presenting ten lessons from the Global Financial Crisis. Above all, he recommends learning from “Mother Nature” – by making our global financial system more robust via a series of simple but dramatic changes to our thinking and policies. However, his lessons apply way beyond finance and I’m going to apply some of them to leadership. How do you think colleagues would rate you on the issues below?

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LEADERSHIP: FOR SUCCESS – AND HAPPINESS

published:2010-07-19 01:00:00

Like Professor Clayton Christensen, I’ve faced a life threatening cancer and found it a crucible for clarifying my thinking about what’s important. The day after the operation, my wife asked me to step down from chairing a major fund-raising appeal for my daughter’s school. This seemed reasonable and I agreed. Overnight, however, I came to a different view: what was the point of being alive if I turned my back on this type of activity? We all face such decisions but, as Christensen points out in the July-August edition of the Harvard Business Review (2010), we must be proactive in formulating our life strategy. Are you clear about what you’re doing to ensure you are successful, have a happy family life and live by rules of which you can be proud? Below are Professor Christensen’s three strategic questions.

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LEADERSHIP: TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT - BUT HOW?

published:2010-07-13 01:00:00

Due to a backlog of new registrations to work through this Potshot has been delayed by a day. Our apology to our regular readers and welcome to our new readers
Langdon - VECTOR Technical Manager

Google returns 16 million responses for leadership training and 29 million for leadership development. But this begs the question of what is the best approach to either – and a deeper question: do current practices work? From my experience, much of what businesses spend is sub-optimal or wasted. Let me explain.

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LEADERSHIP: THAT ONE KEY LESSON

published:2010-07-07 01:00:00

How do you rate yourself on the following five actions? Showing self-awareness?. Demonstrating authenticity, integrity and compassion? Understanding and engaging people as individuals? Showing self-leadership and adaptability? Communicating, particularly listening well – and widely? These are my phrases but, taken together, they encapsulate nearly 80% of the responses to a recent online survey that asked “if you could teach one thing to a young leader, what would it be?” From my decades of working with leaders (and being one), I can’t fault any of these suggestions. Even though, at times and to my cost, I’ve ignored some! But, notwithstanding their importance, they’re less than the full picture. Let me explain why – and suggest what else might be needed.

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Timothy Pascoe ...

I wouldn't want my photo on the Home page (or my bio. at left) to suggest that life is all work and no play. So, here's my favourite image of myself. In 2000, a group of us walked for three weeks through France and Italy, and one day a friend snapped me asleep after lunch under an olive tree.

I was born and grew up in Adelaide, South Australia. I graduated with Bachelor degrees in Engineering and Economics from Adelaide University, a Doctorate of Philosophy in Operations Research from Cambridge and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard.

My career has included:

  • working for McKinsey & Co. Inc. a global consultancy in New York, Melbourne and Sydney
  • running a Sydney-based venture capital company in the early 1970s
  • appointment as Federal Director of the Liberal Party of Australia based in Canberra in 1974/75
  • establishing Arts Research, Training and Support (ARTS) Limited, a national non-profit organisation bringing commercial consultancy, management training and financial support to the arts in Australia
  • a three-year appointment as Executive Chairman of the Australia Council, the Federal Government's arts-policy and funding agency
  • since 1984, running my own business strategy (and more recently, leadership and board governance) consultancy with clients in Australia, Asia, Europe and America. My clients have covered a range of industries including financial services, resources, property, transport, agriculture, manufacturing, software development and professional services.

I created the V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership® framework over many years based on the above experiences and the exposure to leaders in local, national and global organisations ranging in size from two or three partners to thousands of employees.

In 2004, I was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the arts and community organisations.

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