Articles

These things are not nice-to-haves; they are survival strategies for leadership and the foundations for developing your resilience

We all have to recognise that there are other perspectives than our own, and to accept the responsibility, ourselves, for reconciling them.

We like things to have a simple recipe, like “five steps to culture change success”, but the recipe is not the cake, and change is complex.

I’ve noticed a shift in the way charities are approaching strategy development, they’re increasingly thinking about system change.

The charity sector is facing a lot of strong headwinds that we can’t avoid, so how can we create opportunity from adversity?

From referrals to feedback, if we really understand people’s interests and potential, the best gifts we can give them are often free

Despite everything, there are plenty of reasons to be positive. And now, more than ever, we need to remind ourselves of them.

How we can collectively unleash civil society’s superpower to start bridging the divides and countering social fragmentation

How we make decisions, particularly the most contentious ones, is often more important than the decision itself.

The phrase “sharing power” has huge traction but it’s often misused and misleading. Here’s why we need to start rethinking power.

Most bad board meetings are easily avoidable if we do the right things, and most of them are things we already know how to do.

For any group of people, the first step to improving performance is always to align on expectations; to explicitly agree what good looks like

If we’re serious about making the world a better place, these are the building-blocks charities need to start preparing for the future

There’s a new set of critical competencies we need all our people to develop, and their absence is a growing source of stress for leaders

Operational thinking starts where you are and works forwards. Strategic thinking starts where you want to be, and works backwards.

Growing commercial income seems to be back on the agenda for a lot of nonprofits, so here are a few things you should know.

Three solutions for dramatically scaling impact for nonprofits, mission-driven and civil society organisations

If we’re serious about finding better strategies for financial sustainability, these are the roads we will need to travel.

The crisis in service provision is not a problem nonprofits can address through tactical solutions. It needs a strategic approach.

Most nonprofits have visions that require us to understand how systemic change happens if they’re to become reality.

It’s easy to get so fixated on the challenge, that we think about “getting through it” rather than building momentum from it.

Are we here to deliver contracts or change the world? These are the existential conversations I’m having and you can listen in.

When it comes to speed, quality, and engagement, how we make decisions is far more important than what we decide.

In Good Company: a series of conversations on the future of charity and its leadership

Agile planning, agility, and innovation, can all be massively increased simply by trying to come up with “ten ways you can”.

When did you last find yourself consciously choosing your style. whether for a discussion or for navigating a conflict?

When people give feedback it’s more often about them than it is about you. Here’s how to give useful feedback.

Why you need to start now on getting the team match fit, not just for the work of today, but for the work of tomorrow.

A tender process is not the best way to get a charity’s expertise, nor is it how to hire consultants for the best outcomes.

Understanding the ideal scenario and the worst case alternatives will improve your ability to shape your own future.

As the periodic wave of leadership change rolls across our major charities, here’s what new charity leaders need to know.

We’ve seen huge impact from organisations working together within ecosystems of change. How do we make this a priority?

For all the thinks that will be changed by the growth of AI, one thing AI will not change is the value of lived experience.

The ethical divide between charities and businesses is fiction. In reality it’s a spectrum and a huge opportunity.

Understanding and influencing the menatal models other default to, is key to ensuring we get our own message received well.

A theory of change doesn’t need to be a complex flow chart. It’s simply our belief about how we create change.

Energy is the driving force in all that we do. How do you generate enough energy to continually reignite your drive?

A great team is far more than the sum of its parts, but many of our teams aren’t. Here’s how to change that.

It doesn’t matter how passionately we believe, aligning agendas will always be more powerful than pushing a moral cause.

If we want to create better outcomes for whole populations, we need to focus on the system and work with others.

Get past the fight, flight, or freeze response by developing your conflict maturity, and shift into collaborative mode.

We only have to think about a cricket team evaluating itself for racism to realise objecive self-assessment is impossible.

How can you tell if your people are afraid of expanding your mind? And how might you address it if they are?

The footballing analogy of premier leadership can helps us to see that there are far higher levels of aspiration.

It is not the strength of your arguments, it is your ability to create emotional engagement that will help you change the world.

Charities can be sniffy about it, but good sales technique doesn’t just help you get what you need, it helps others as well.

Once you begin to realise your full value to others, a wealth of new opportunities will invariably start to emerge.

There is a huge value to be had from the outsider perspective that we lose when our culture requires assimilation.

Whether through data or direct human contact, understanding relationships are the heart of commercial success.

Learning and growth require us to be open to challenging our beliefs, as individuals but also culturally, as an organisation.

The way that we and others describe ourselves creates, what can become, the self-image trap, preventing our growth.

In any change process, the early sign of resistance is fertile soil in which to grow your own understanding.

Leaders need to stop holding and start sharing the uncertainty so that their teams can develop more agile plans.