From the desk of Caspar:
“set your course by the stars, not the lights of every passing ship”
In 1993, Lou Gerstner took over at IBM when it was on the brink of bankruptcy. His singular mission in the early days was summed up by one word. Survival. It was a clear message to the whole business. Manage costs. Find new revenue. It was a simple, powerful and clear story of what they needed to do.
In 2009, I had a challenge. A struggling business, a marriage which was lukewarm at best and a family life that needed to be turned around. The single best thing we did as a family team was to re-write the story of our future.
It’s no different for many people now. The world has been turned on it’s head and we’re all working hard to figure out what to do.
The single best way I know to create certainty out of uncertainty is to create it yourself. Pick up a pen and write the story of your future, no matter how impossible or crazy it seems; and then to go and make it happen, step by step.
It was Omar Bradley who said to set your course by the stars and not the lights of every passing ship.
Tip: What’s the star, what’s the story you are following right now?
The reality of working from home!
When you’re trying to get ready to deliver an online talk and your seven year old and “Jason the bear” have already hijacked Zoom and your green screen... #workingfromhome
Dealing with Isolation
It’s been great to share ideas with lots of people online over the past week both within the Spartan community and this interview with David Lawrence on how to deal with isolation and juggling work and home life.
Here’s the interview with David
Next week, I’ll be doing a live broadcast with Hager Group for anyone who would like to join the livestream. The details of this event can be found here:
Leadership tip of the week.
The merging of work and home life.
We're all having to adapt right now to working and living in the same four walls.
For those who share space with other people, here's one simple idea that worked for us when we had two years of effective self isolation at sea whilst working and home schooling.
Have the conversation around roles and who's doing what - simple things like who's working at what times, who's doing what meals, cleaning, home schooling etc,
We only learnt to have these conversations after months of misunderstanding and arguments before we got super clear on how we worked together as a home team.
PS If you like this, you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel to get these tips every week rather than just every fortnight.
Online Talks
I’m doing a lot of online presentations at the moment on these topics. Get in touch if these would be helpful for your business or team. Topics that are most asked for are how to:
uncover fresh opportunities that change always creates;
Keep your team engaged and focused
manage your mindset and the mental health of yourself and your team;
remain productive and effective working at home;
sidestep cabin fever and arguments;
manage homeschooling;
How to plan for the future if you’re feeling lost.
For more details go to the Teamwork Speakers page here.
The feedback from one event last week is here:
