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Yet Mr Gates’ programme itself is not inherently evil and why you can do better without slides. Ouch!’Death by PowerPoint.’ That’s the commonly used term. Jim Nelson, a man who served as a translator between the American and Russian troops in Bosnia, tells a story about the Russians watching with bemused fascination as their unlikely […]

This season is all about being thankful, even when you have nothing to Using Thankfulness as a Core Value. If your current situation doesn’t reflect the ideal person and/or life you want, it may be difficult to stay positive. However, when you look at everything you do have, as opposed to what you don’t have, […]

As a seasoned frontline journalist and broadcaster, Mandy Wiener has a unique perspective on current affairs and A Country Worth Fighting For on how history unfolds in South Africa.   Mandy has had a front row seat to the nine wasted years, the anatomy of the state capture project, the evisceration of state owned entities […]

Care About and Challenge Each Other – The Two Keys to Team Performance I’ve been a part of lots of teams, in sports and business, and over the past 20 years I’ve had a chance to work with many high-performing teams, at companies like Google, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Schwab, eBay, and others. I’ve also studied […]

Life has a such a unique way of giving us what we need (soul food) rather than what we want. Stop another dark night of the soul.   I have just come out of what can only be described as another dark soul of the night. Unable to see further than my fear and feeling […]

Leadership Hack: How Sticky Notes Can Help Your Career Sticky notes have been my savior. And I don’t mean in a “don’t forget the milk” kind of way. True, sticky notes are great for grocery lists, but what I’m talking about here is how a few small squares helped me become a better leader, and […]

Lift as You Rise is Bonang Mohale’s book, published during his tenure as CEO of Business Leadership South Africa. He is a highly respected South African businessman, who is known as much for his patriotism and his active role in seeking to advance his country’s interests as for the leading role he has played in […]

We all end up needing to have an Uncomfortable Conversations. We may have to share with someone our unmet expectations, disappointment, or actual annoyance. This could be with a direct report, our boss, a peer, a spouse, or maybe even a child. No one likes these situations, but we must deal with them appropriately in […]

To Think like a leader, you can’t really miss it. The headlines, the endless discussions and debates, the boundless optimism from some and apocalyptic warnings from others. Unless you’ve had your head stuck in the sand for the last few months – and who, at times, hasn’t wanted to do that?! – the turbulence in […]

The Comeback Kids and “Misery loves company” so the saying goes – and in the age of Covid that seems to be the gravitational force that currently drives social and media conversations. Our attention is being continuously siloed toward the latest business failure, business rescue and somebody we know being adversely affected by the pandemic. […]

Things that were no-brainers in meetings two years ago are now fraught with public health and Meetings Etiquette concerns. How do you ask whether someone is OK shaking hands? How do you indicate that you yourself aren’t comfortable—or that you are? How do you indicate someone is too physically close for comfort? Before walking into […]

I realised everything you do is marketing after I recently stayed at a five-star hotel and found a major marketing problem lurking in the wardrobe in my room.   Upon check-in I was welcomed enthusiastically, and my membership status recognised with a room upgrade. I was even presented with a welcome gift to thank me […]

Do You Have Blinders On? | Confirmation Bias is a term we’ve heard a lot over the last few years as science has become a debate topic and you hear qualified experts providing completely opposite interpretations on the same topic. But what role does it play in your life if you aren’t doing studies and […]

As we have seen ourselves Fast Forward over the last 30 years, massive disruption has hit the $4 trillion transportation industry. Detroit has shrunk into a tiny version of its former self. Air travel has continued to go through the constant boom and bust based on the economy and jet fuel prices, and has yet […]

This week in my 3 minute leadership roles with Jones  Zone, I talk about the importance in finding balance between Humility and Ambition. Why You Need To Be More Humbitious In Your Approach To Leadership Contact Us at WeSpeak Global and follow us on Twitter

If you’ve ever seen expectant parents in a baby shop, you’d know that pregnancy is a life stage that usually triggers an avalanche of consumerism and to find Pink Sheets.   I (thankfully) never tallied what I spent during my pregnancy, I just know that becoming a mum, while filling my heart, has drained my […]

Rebel technologists thrive when a couple of key environmental factors are in place The first thing is budget.  Making sure that you can find the necessary budget to be able to instil these changes is an ideal starting point. If you aren’t working towards some kind of return on investment, somewhere along the line, why should […]

How to handle COVID-19 working from home and These Three Mindsets Will Help You Thrive During Change With all of the uncertainty everyone is facing, there are three guarantees that you should expect : 1. Everything will take longer. Conferencing everyone in, trying to call into a customer service center, or waiting in line at […]

The inflexibility of the demands you place on yourself can make you unadaptable and Are You Making Demands. Our thoughts and beliefs shape the world that we live in. The inflexibility of the demands you place on yourself, other people and the world around you may mean that you don’t adapt as well to reality […]

Almost every industry today is undergoing a radical reimagining and a Transformation story about leadership. Yet simple catchphrases’ like ‘strategic pivot’ and ‘disruptive innovation’ do little leadership to encapsulate the complex challenges that organizations face in the accelerated world unleashed by the pandemic. The problem is particularly acute for technology companies. When decision-makers are inundated […]

As 2021 comes to an end, what did you rethink Keys to Build Resilience or unlearn over the past couple of years in order to personally and professionally survive and thrive? I’ll go first. Being well versed in the science of change didn’t stop me from initially doubting the success of virtual events. After all, […]

In business, I have learnt the incredible value of Lessons in building business dashboards that eliminate unnecessary data (ruthlessly) and focus only on imperative and useful stats that help you make informed decisions quickly. In my average week, I refer to two central dashboards. One the shows the health of my business and the other […]

My South Africa was not supposed to be a hit. Ingrid Jones contacted me late on a Sunday night to explain the concept and to urge me to do a ‘quick one’ for an inflight magazine. I did the piece in less than an hour and went to sleep. Next thing I heard was that […]

Change Your Sleep, Change Your Life: Do you suffer from the inability to go to sleep? I have my entire life. Until lately things have finally begun to change, but it is a choice, as I’ve begun to make and keep simple promises that are making a huge difference. Change Your Sleep, Change Your Life […]

Aerial warfare of a whole different flavour has hit the open skies. Anti “Flying Pineapple” technology implemented by various private companies has become a thorny issue for the world’s biggest online retailer, Amazon furious about the use of anti-“Flying Pineapple” technology. Disclaimer: This article is a forecast of a possible future and should not be […]

Culture and Talent Retention is a real challenge and employees are looking for organizations that inspire them, uplift them and create opportunities for growth and progression. Of significant importance to retaining people is the ability of an organization to create alignment between what they say and what they actually do. Misalignment of value systems is […]

In April, 2020 I wrote an article describing four possible scenarios for how the The Coronavirus Scenarios could play out: “Much Ado About Nothing”, “The Camel’s Straw”, “Spain Again” and “Walking the Tightrope”. At the time the cumulative number of global cases was 2 400 000 and deaths 165 000. Seven months later, the figures are 60 000 000 and […]

The Best Employees are the Ones Who Understand the Bigger Picture   We often talk about the best leadership qualities, but we should be talking about the best qualities of an employee. The best employees are the ones that know their efforts contribute to something bigger than themselves. They see how their work has an […]

It is difficult to conceive that 11 months on from National Lock down on 26 March 2020, our tiny business survives and feels strongly that the tide is turning. What a significant time and mighty relief for us, acutely mindful that so many are struggling desperately just to survive. Despite it not being my natural […]

One of the most common buzzwords of 2022 on how to Create a Working Culture has to be the word ‘feedback’. My sense is that leaders and managers for the most part want to get better than this, and it could therefore be a major goal for 2022. As you might expect however, there’s a […]

Do you get easily distracted when you should be working on a task? Work/Break Block System (WBBS) – The Productivity Secret You Will Love! Do you find yourself taking breaks more frequently than you know you should? Do you sometimes spend too much time working on a task and then get totally burned out before […]

From childhood through college I found Good Storytellers, I studied music as a classically trained pianist. I took lessons from masterful teachers, practiced every week, played in recitals, and did everything a good piano student does.   You could put almost any sheet music in front of me, and I could play it. There was […]

Ten years ago, I was retrenched from a marketing and sales position. My story is the same as many other people. Sometimes losing a job can point towards a better life and opportunities you never thought possible and now Ten Years as an Entrepreneur. After my retrenchment, I didn’t have an epiphany about starting a […]

A framework from my book Humancentric for how to create Relationship and Intelligence in businesses in the fourth industrial revolution. How do we focus more on people than technology? When we do our research behind all of the aspects of business, we need to focus on the context we are in, the relationships around that […]

The Silicon Valley Unicorn craze is slowly fading, and in the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution, all eyes are riveting to startup in Africa, India, and South America as the new battlegrounds, yet people have no real understanding of the challenges faced by homegrown startups in these regions, trying to innovate in harsh environments, […]

“Technology is exponential but humans are not and can do great things, but it does not WANT to do great things – it does not want anything” says Apple’s CEO Tim Cook (a quote I have often used in my talks). Technology is a tool not a purpose – see my ‘carpenter and the hammer example’ (video).   “Both […]

Now that we are in the midst of the world’s largest remote work does not work experiment, it’s worth asking: what does it take to run a good virtual meeting? It is all too easy to just focus on what can be controlled and configured: security, bandwidth, platforms or devices. However, when it comes to […]

In September of 2012, a freak failure of the dynamic positioning system of the vessel Chris Lemons Speaker was working under, resulted in the umbilical which provides him with breathing gas, light and heat being severed completely.   He was left on the sea-bed, in complete darkness 300 feet below the surface, with only the 5 […]

I posted this about Hole in the Wall and Coffee Bay yesterday for Incredible Adventure Destinations . It’s a classic view of EsiKhaleni! This is a series of 9 episodes taking you on another Wild Journey into the heart of South African Adventure traveling. Follow explorer and adventurer Peter Van Kets and photographers, Jacques Marais, […]

‘Quick! The business is dying! Find me the humblest possible consultant to solve the problem!’ as Experts don’t disqualify themselves. Author Allen Weiss makes this tongue-in-cheek point in his book, ‘Million Dollar Maverick.’ And it’s a good one. As we strive to position ourselves as top-level experts in our industry, a demure and deferring persona […]

I Got Sued YESTERDAY. Just like this headline is misleading and complete clickbait, such is the reality we are living in, and the point of this author and PAPERBACK WRITER. I clicked on a post recently after reading wild news stories ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and stumbled upon the Yahoo! article entitled: “Fans Sue Movie Yesterday”. I […]

According to leadership guru Warren Bennis, “leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” Rugby and Leadership captains have that innate ability to do just this, Rugby and leadership go hand-in-hand . Here in South Africa we have witnessed numerous leaders connected to the sport of rugby who have displayed such qualities. I have […]

The Status Quo of Crisis Preparedness Puts You at a Disadvantage—and It’s Time For That To Change. Over the last couple of years, I’ve found myself increasingly frustrated with my industry, the crisis management profession. To put my frustration simply, the status quo of crisis preparedness and crisis management no longer suffices and, as a […]

I have heard I’m not really a water-person statement so many times. But what does it really mean? You come from water, you drink water, and it turns out – water knows you very well whether or not you want to be part of the relationship. We are all water people, you might just not […]

Zigazoo is the new “TikTok” for kids. In a nutshell, it’s an education/entertainment app, which engages students in meaningful learning and problem-solving activities whilst entertaining them. It doesn’t seem so harmful, does it? But, is it safe for kids? The terms of service (but not the app description) clearly state that Zigazoo is meant to […]

Last week I got to spend five and a half hours of Beyond Strategy with one of the most influential strategic thinkers alive today, Gary Hamel. He has written five global best-selling books, published 17 papers in Harvard Business Review, and has taught at London Business School for 30 years. But most importantly, Gary has […]

The risks of Algorithmic Inequality Trap and discrimination and bias have received much attention and scrutiny, and rightly so. Yet there is another more insidious side-effect of our increasingly AI-powered society — the systematic inequality created by the changing nature of work itself. We fear a future where robots take our jobs, but what happens […]

This is a great article on Bringing the mountains home which addresses employee happiness and developing a beneficial culture that contributes to a business’ success. *** Written by Travis Gale, CEO of Appletree Catalyst Agency, which discusses how to deal with end-of-year burnout and how to ‘Bringing the mountains home’. This past festive season, I […]

Native Americans Voices in Corporate America: Inspiring Change and Inclusivity Introduction The corporate world has increasingly recognized the value of diversity, inclusion, and fresh perspectives in today’s globalized and dynamic business landscape. Indigenous voices, often underrepresented and underheard, offer unique insights and experiences that can enrich corporate America. In this Native Americans article, we will […]

In this age of constant digital innovations and disruption with the future of events, the value of digital elements across the board has become evident. With continuous learning and development, digital activities have become ingrained in the fabric of humanity. However, it is vital, especially, in the age of information that brands and organisations lead […]

The global market economy is facing a tough time, with billions of dollars lost this week alone — and the local market is following suit with wisdom all around us The outlook is negative and some economies are preparing for another crisis. This does not provide an inspiring environment for someone looking to start or […]

The only way to succeed is to continuously improve and so, Success is simple The Japanese have a name for it: Kaizen. And Kaizen is all about consistency. If you’ll forgive/indulge me, let’s use me, and this photo, as the vehicle for this discussion here. It’s probably evident even from the above low res version […]

If SA is to live, its leaders must stop feasting on dead ideas and There are several reasons why Venezuelan polymath Moises Naim claims the attention of posterity. He served as the minister of trade and industry in his homeland when that country was the richest in South America. Afterward, he edited prestigious journal Foreign […]

Are you guilty of multi-tasking during meetings? Unfortunately, being present during meetings, especially present-day Impactful Virtual Meeting, is so rare, I wish I could bottle and sell it. Here’s a few facts you can toss around the tele-conferencing office (Source: Prezi State of Attention Research): In any online meeting about 95 percent of the audience is probably multi-tasking. […]