What Kind of Boss Are You – Star or Idiot?
We spend a lot of time thinking, coaching and writing about the challenges of talented people frustrated with life inside big organizations. If you’re the leader,…
Balance of Power
Rest and recovery are a crucial part of any exercise program. After putting your body through a significant amount of stress during a grueling workout, you have…
It's a Slow Fade
When dealing with a lack of engagement amongst the workforce the key is to recognize the early warning signs. Often it really is a slow fade – rarely do people…
Divided We Fall
Celebrating diversity is key to a healthy organization and we don’t just mean in terms of ethnicity, gender etc. We mean celebrating the fact that others have…
The Future is Bright
As the dreaded annual performance reviews and goal setting process comes around once again, we thought it might be pertinent to share a few words on creating a process…
Social Medium
Going three for three we thought we would consider a different bias in this blog building on the past two and this time we are thinking about social bias. Social…
We Before Me
Hard on the heels of our last blog about cognitive bias, we thought we might consider another bias that leaders can fall prey to. Today’s bias for discussion is…
Shake it Up
Few senior leaders when making important strategic decisions consciously consider their cognitive biases. These systematic tendencies to deviate from rational calculations…
Mentorship Musings
Ill-thought out mentorship programs can backfire on the organizations that use them. Instead of motivating employees, a poor mentorship experience can leave them…
Did You Know?
Intellectual Technology is a fascinating subject which continues to mature. The term in this context relates to a progression from Information Technology. If Information…
Busy Fools?
We are always told that the world is a much busier place these days and we certainly encounter people every day that tell us that they are “really, really busy”.…
Smarter than the Average Bear
In the current climate there appears to be a dearth of critical thinking. Perhaps because Google has made it easy for us to be lazy in our thinking – just type…
Be Yourself
‘Be yourself’ is the defining careers advice of the moment. It’s heard everywhere from business leaders in the boardroom, social media influencers,…
The Coefficient of Restitution
The Coefficient of Restitution (COR) is a measure of the “restitution” of a collision between two objects: how much of the kinetic energy remains for…
Fire When Ready
The real problem with poor performing employees is us. If you want to feel better about yourself we will concede that on rare occasions and for a small percentage…
Drawing the Line
One well-established principle of organization should always be followed and that is that accountability, responsibility and authority must go hand in hand. No position…
Hearing Loss
Proportion and context is something we need to consider often as consultants. The ability to maintain a sense of context is key as we work with clients to develop…
The Philosophy of Identity
Individuals have an identity and so do organizations. An organization’s identity is derived from its Purpose (the fundamental reason why the organization exists)…
Leaving Change to Chance
It still surprises us just how many organizations leave change to chance or at best provide a couple of hours training in a workshop to prepare their leaders to…
The Flight of the Bumblebee
From the title you might assume that here at Optimize we have become fascinated with orchestral interludes and specifically the one written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov…