New Leeson Life

I stumbled across this article in Harvard Business Review this morning  FINALLY! I thought, someone (other than Patrick Lencioni) is talking about trust as a precursor to just about every element of business success. And then I read on, and I pulled a face a bit like this... I mean, I applaud the research (even though it falls everso slightly into the category of “socio/psychological research into the stuff most of us know deep down to be true anyway”). It basically says that organisations with a high level of trust in their culture perform better. Simple right? Logical, non? After all Mr Lencioni has been telling us this for decades. Now the scientists agree. Excellent. Except... What the scientists basically measured was Ocytocin levels. And Ocytocin is the neurochemical of trust, true. But it’s also the neurochemical of connection, love, attachment and (whisper it) the stuff that courses through your veins after really good sex. We need more oxytocin in ...

January.  The month of resolutions, new beginnings, and the sound of a million couch to 5k apps being launched in hopeful anticipation of the transformations to come. Transformation. There's a sneaky word. Until fairly recently I was a global head of change for a "transformation programme" (or program, if you happened to be American, and most of my wonderful colleagues were). A big hairy audacious transformation program. So, with the benefit of experience, I feel as if January, with it's glinting cold light and calm before storm-ness, is a good time to point out that transformation is an exceptionally unhelpful word. It's seductive, for sure. We humans love the  idea  of transformation. Caterpillar to butterfly, zero to hero, Extreme Makeovers. The thought of changing rapidly and in one fell swoop from one thing to something dramatically different and therefore better has launched the careers of a thousand Gok Wan-abees, Life Coaches and Consultants...

We don't listen enough. In a world where all of us are broadcasters, content creators, self-promoters, listening has become a lost art. We're too busy trying to saying something smart/witty/provocative/heartfelt, too busy trying to stand out. Ironically, too busy trying to be heard. We forget to listen. We tweet, we Insta, we SnapChat, the old folks still Facebook, recruiters and weirdos LinkedIn. And in those worlds, we are concerned with broadcast. Look at me. Hear me. Read what I have to say. Behold what I had for breakfast. And if I don't want to hear what you say? I can mute you, un-follow you or de-friend you. That way, you have to listen to me, but I can 'la-la-la' your reality out of mine with the click of a button or a swipe of my finger.  And its a problem. Because growth doesn't happen with the volume dial up. Connection doesn't happen without reception. We don't learn anything new while we are talking. No real understanding was ever...

If you work for me, or with me, you will be well versed in my love for a metaphor. Today for example, I pushed a 'welcome to the party' metaphor so far that, by the time I'd finished, the police had been called and people were outside sitting on the kerb feeling sorry for themselves. One of my favourites stems from a Polish saying "Not my Circus; not my monkeys". I love this, not because I like a slopy-shouldered sentiment. Quite the opposite; because the phrase begs the obvious question: "Whose monkeys are they then?". My team will often find themselves grilled by me on monkey ownership. "Who has this monkey?", "Do we have track of all our monkeys?", "Do you each know which are your monkeys?". Monkey ownership. Its a useful concept. One that organisations undergoing change, or that move at pace, or that have fluid structures often struggle with. I've worked in some organisations (usually German) that have monkey own...

It was a simple Facebook comment that did it. One minute I was scrolling idly through my mum's page. The next I'm kneeling on the floor sobbing. The comment? "Mimi would have been so proud".  Mimi was what we called my beloved grandmother. (Because she felt that 'Gran' was too old and fuddy duddy, and because she'd got it into her head that Mimi was French for Grandmother and, by the time she'd been gently disabused of the notion, it had stuck. It suited her perfectly.). It'll be a year since she passed away on Tuesday.  The comment, made by one of her dearest friends, was in response to a video of me singing a big band song. It had been posted on Facebook and Instagram by my vocal coach, and shared by my mum. (I'll be 40 in 7 months and my mum is still doing that kind of shizzle - what can you do?). I was sobbing because it was a bittersweet compliment. It was a bittersweet compliment because Mimi never heard me sing. She never heard...

I’m writing this on a flight from Newark to London. I was meant to be on a flight from Washington to London yesterday. Except, United Airlines. This isn’t the story of my delay, my frantic and ultimately futile cab ride across North Carolina, or even my discovery that the United Airlines full tagline is “Fly the Friendly Skies… ‘cause the ground staff are just plain rude”. For that saga, maybe visit my Facebook page where you can see updates of my excursions to various East Coast airports while my mum comments in bewilderment, my husband attempts to keep me chipper and my boss uses social media to inform me he won’t be approving my expenses… I digress. I was in the US as part of a global project. A big, bold, multi-cultural transformation project with huge potential to revolutionise the organisation I work in. Exciting in itself, right? But also exciting because of the diversity of our fabulous team – East Coast, West Coast, Mid-West and Southern Americans. Canadians, Brits, Fren...