As I get ready to pack my bags and fly to Barcelona to spend the next three weeks, I wanted to reflect, in this last article for 2024, on the year that has been.

Today, the debate about working arrangements is still alive and well. Organisations continue to grapple with finding the right approach. Some have mandated a return to the office, others have gone fully remote, and many are experimenting with hybrid models. So, what’s the right approach?

One of the most common complaints I hear from teams, especially in large organisations, is that they are being “reactive” to their work. They often use the word "overwhelmed" to describe how they feel.

I have a confession to make. I have been running a business for the last 10 years and have not done a (traditional) business plan. Ever. Not at the start; not every five years; not every year. Never.

Twelve years ago, I was at an event where Greg Ellis, the former CEO of Realestate.com.au, was interviewed. They asked him what the secret to the success of the business was.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been writing about what helps teams and organisations create a Culture of Learning versus a Culture of (just) Performance or (just) Comfort — this week I will write about Shared Accountability and Commitment.

Last week, I shared my views on the debate between a culture of comfort versus a culture of performance and suggested that the focus should instead be on achieving a Culture of Learning.

For the second week in a row, I am going to write about a topic that has been debated recently in the media. Likewise, for the second week in a row, I am going to provide you with an alternative view to it.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Founder mode versus Manager mode. It’s not a new issue, but one that’s come back strongly after Brian Chesky, the founder and CEO of Airbnb, gave a talk on the topic.

For decades, organisations and teams have tried to fix their problems by creating and running big projects with the hope that they will fix whatever is not working at the time: customer satisfaction, employee engagement, sales or whatever process is not working.

I believe that one of the most important transitions leaders need to make when they start taking leadership positions is going from “achieving” to “setting up a system” where others can achieve.

Last week I shared with my team in one of our weekly meetings that I had written 27 weekly articles since I started this experiment 6 months ago. One article, every week that is sent on Thursday at 9am, and I still haven’t missed one. I even joked saying: “who thought I wasn’t going to be that consistent?”.

A few years ago, a Neu21 team member left to start his own business; it is something we celebrate and encourage at Neu21. Before he left, he called me and asked me for some words of advice. I said to him: “As a leader and business owner, not everyone is going to like you.”

Last week I spoke about Lean and how I believe, similarly to agile, that above all else, it is a business philosophy; or a way to think about business and organisations. Today I am going to give you three tools that were created under the lean banner that anyone can use with their teams and/or organisations today.

Lean is another of those words, like agile, that has been thrown into the corporate world a lot over the last few years / decades. But like agile; I believe it has been used in the wrong way or context.

There is a word that expresses perfectly, what is possibly the most important quality leaders need to master for themselves, and for the teams and organisations they lead these days. That word is liminality. 

Sadly, agile is not a word that is totally well received in organisations these days; especially by people that have “suffered” big agile transformations thrown upon them. Some people are sceptical when they hear the word and in general, it has probably been overused and misused a lot in the last 5 to 10 years in the world of business.

Last week I wrote about how agile started; today I am going to talk about what has happened since then, and how it has evolved to this day.

I have been wanting to write about agility for a while now; and given that this is a topic that is very close to my heart, it may turn into a three- or four-week series.

I know a lot of people who read this weekly newsletter, or follow the work we do at Neu21, are what we call the “change agents” in organisations.The people that don’t have to be convinced that there is a better way to lead, run teams and organisations, and who constantly question the traditional and conservative ways of operating in business.