‘GROUPTHINK’ is a dangerous psychological phenomenon involving that board members prioritise harmony, consensus, and conformity over critical analysis, leading to poor strategic decisions and failed fiduciary oversight. In other words, we suppress our doubts with the well-intended aim of maintaining…

PEOPLE always ask me what the most important board or team dynamic to look out for is, and my answer is undoubtedly the phenomenon of groupthink. Groupthink occurs when a group of well-intentioned people makes collective irrational or incorrect decisions,…

IT is very normal to have a situation where a strategic plan is developed by one group of people and implemented by another. In fact, my most common consulting assignments involve reviewing strategic plans other people have put together.Most of…

It’s important to have a healthy understanding of resistance. You should never take it personally if some people respond to your vision, or change, with rejection, defensiveness or resistance. In fact, you should welcome it, because your sharpest feedback comes…

With all due respect, the word ‘wish’ has become one of my least favourite words in the dictionary. The simple reason is because of how often this word is misused and reduced to a veiled excuse not to do something.…

The term ‘turnaround strategy’ is mostly used to place renewed emphasis on a rescue effort and is most commonly applied when appointing a new board or chief executive of a public enterprise. Public enterprises are based upon an act of…

EVERYTHING in business, boardrooms and beyond is conveyed using words. Strategies, laws, policies and even the Constitution are a set of words written down. In the same way, idle talk and complaining are also words, albeit spoken. As you can…

A company is an inanimate person.This means that although it has the ability to own assets, enter into contracts and trade with others, it is ultimately unable to do so because it is not a living, breathing person. Because of…

Picture a serious board meeting taking place. The agenda is packed and the discussions are deep and in-depth. The chairperson is doing well by guiding the discourse with fairness and certainty, helping the board navigate the many different views until…

When was the last time you thought of something new? Or better yet, when was the last time you built and developed a whole new perspective on something? This is the practice of developing counter perspectives, which is the practice…

SOME decisions seem complex to take. Every decision is made hard or difficult based on how two parameters behave. The first parameter is how comparable two options are (whether one choice is clearly better than the other), and the second…

As part of the process of facilitating strategic choices, I often encounter situations where individuals or groups must make tough decisions. Over time, I have learned to differentiate between a decision that is hard and one that is difficult. A…