Blog

Was that the sound of my risk shifting? #riskmanagement Jun 01, 2022

If a week is a long time in politics, then six months is a lifetime for business leaders.  As someone who aspires to be a #futurologist , I save surve...

Continue Reading...
Creativity should be fun Jun 01, 2022

Playing Bananagram's Cobra Paw is a lot of fun.  It's designed for 10 year olds but seems to bring out the child in all ages. At Defy Expectations we ...

Continue Reading...
Optimising Productivity - The Difficult Art of Stopping #leadershipdevelopment performance May 25, 2022

As the business environment gets more and more difficult optimising productivity is increasingly important.  You cannot afford to waste any time on pr...

Continue Reading...
The Dangerous World of Hope Apr 29, 2022

I live not far from the BMW plant in Oxford.  As you drove past the entrance a couple of years ago the road was lined with trucks from all over Europe...

Continue Reading...
The future is not what we thought - the hard lessons of reality leadership Mar 30, 2022

Leaders are always being urged to think about the future.  What can disrupt your business, what new technology/competitors/market is coming to disrupt...

Continue Reading...
Swimming in the smart lane – a sideways view of Account Management Mar 23, 2022

For the last few months my morning run has become rather hazardous because our local swimming pool is putting in a ground-source heat pump that will h...

Continue Reading...
Caring for yourself is an act of generosity – 6 things that will help self care Mar 11, 2022

All through the pandemic I have been talking to people who are stressed and exhausted by the pressures of their job, their relationships, home schooli...

Continue Reading...
When will they ever learn? #defyexpectations leadership Mar 08, 2022

I used to laugh at my mother, who all her adult life stockpiled candles and tinned food and needles and thread, “because you couldn’t get them in the ...

Continue Reading...
Plan in earnest, and with pessimism Feb 23, 2022

At the beginning of the year, I wrote about the six skills that leaders would need for the future.  One of these is risk management.  Looking at today...

Continue Reading...
Sometimes it’s better to be a machine Feb 18, 2022

When things get bad at work, when there is no communication, when there is no let up in the pressure, you often hear the comment “we are just being tr...

Continue Reading...
Suddenly the world changed Feb 09, 2022

Yesterday Australia, which had one of the most draconian approaches to Covid, announced that its borders were open to anyone that had been vaccinated ...

Continue Reading...
Welcome to the Guerrilla World of Transformational Leadership Jan 20, 2022

In my last blog/post I talked about the six skills that we, at Defy Expectations believe leaders will need in the New Normal.  The first of these is T...

Continue Reading...