Articles
Balance Curve publishes articles designed to support and assist our clients. Some of our articles are found below and on LinkedIn.
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Let people be heard
Time poor managers (and that’s pretty much all of us) want to find the best solution as quickly as we can. This means that we often become frustrated when we bump into people who have a different approach to the one we want to take. The thought just pops into your head: “This guy is…
Read MoreImproving Accountability
When I work with leaders I often ask: “If you were the CEO, what would be the one thing you’d do to improve organisational performance?” One of the most common responses is: “I’d focus on improving accountability”. Client’s go on to share their frustration about what they see as a lack of accountability in their…
Read MorePreventing Groupthink
The most important attribute of a high performing team – its cohesiveness – can also bring the team undone. A cohesive team needs to guard against the corruption of its decisions by the groupthink syndrome. The primary protection against this aberration is for team leaders to ensure that the team has a healthy diversity of…
Read MoreSolve 90% of conflict – Keep people talking
When I work with leaders I often ask the question: What’s compromising performance and productivity in your business? Destructive conflict within the team, with colleagues, with other teams, with customers or with suppliers is almost always mentioned. It costs the organisation a lot of time and money, creates stress for everyone involved and inevitably damages…
Read MoreWhat are the “Two Things” that will have the most impact?
Hopefully you are now settled back into work and are refining or developing your plans to ensure you have a great year. A pivotal question is whether you are clear on the “Two things” that will have the most impact on making the year successful? Why two? Well, the truth is this is a bit…
Read MoreThe secret to a successful 2014 – How to become a better listener.
If there is one thing that will improve your performance as a leader in 2014, it’s becoming a better listener. What do I mean by becoming a better listener? I mean listening to understand rather than listening to respond. This is hard, because it requires you to slow down, and we all hate wasting time.…
Read MoreTo go faster, slow down
I saw this quote in a presentation at a conference earlier in the year and it just made so much sense. Taking a small amount of time to reflect, think things through and ask questions results in infinitely better decision making. Hopefully you will have a chance to slow down over the holiday period. If…
Read MoreFive lessons from lousy leaders
When you’re on the end of poor leadership, you swear you will never make the same mistakes. Some of my best learnings on leadership have come from experiencing poor behaviour by past bosses. In the interest of sharing, here are five lessons I was taught by bosses operating in ‘lousy leader’ mode: 1. Manage…
Read MoreBecoming Comfortable with Conflict
High performing organisations are comfortable with conflict. Leaders allow it to happen and ensure their people are skilled in having “constructive” rather than “destructive” conflict. How do you create an environment where people are comfortable with conflict? Michael Kirton, the British psychologist notes that as soon as we have a problem that involves us working…
Read MoreHow Do You Build Trust?
When I talk to clients about the best team they’ve ever been in, the one attribute that’s always mentioned is “Trust”. High performing teams (and organisations) are built on relationships and trust is without doubt the foundation of effective relationships. In great teams the trust factor is very high. In contrast, poor performing teams inevitably…
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