The .red Monthly October 2018

5 Articles to Promote Thought, Encourage Reflection and Ignite Action

  1. Should you be calling that meeting? The team at Atlassian have released a simple flow chart to help you determine if you should be holding a meeting or not. In this blog, they also provide a guide for how to run effective meetings (when these are required). I would also encourage you to check out the Atlassian Team Playbook which they have provided as an Open Source (no B.S.) guide to unleashing your team’s performance.

  2. General Stan McChrystal (ret.) recently tweeted “Leaders shouldn’t have a checklist of attributes. Rather, they should see leadership as a system and adjust their approach based on the needs of that system”. McChrystal unpacks a range of myths and realities of leadership in a new book: Leaders. 

  3. The Center for Creative Leadership have identified four fundamental leadership skills for senior leaders. These include Self-Awareness, Communication, Influence and Learning Agility. These should be seen as continuous improvement competencies which you can reflect and develop over time and through experience.

  4. Is your favourite band or musician including pearls of leadership wisdom through their songs? In a recent LinkedIn article, Joseph Neikirk reflects on the impact that music has had on his life, specifically the leadership insights in 6 Pearl Jam songs.

  5. Continuous employee professional development helps to ensure that organisations maintain and build a competent workforce to meet the ever changing demands of our times, they are higher engagement and contribute to organisational performance and success. This blog post from the University of Vermont, describes why professional development matters to your employees.

Health & Safety Professionals New Zealand Conference Wrap Up

On October 16 I headed to Christchurch, NZ for the HSPNZ Conference. This was a great opportunity to share some insights on ‘Connecting the Dots’ with a group of passionate health and safety professionals in NZ. It was a pleasure to meet so many of these attendees during the conference, and was heartened to hear some of the key takeaways from my presentation being spoken of during the following breaks and after the conference itself.

I also caught up with Kevin Jones from the Safety at Work Blog who attended, he shared the following review on the conference.