There are days and times when our expectations don’t line up with our reality. Often, we go into a situation with expectations of how it will turn out, and then—for whatever reason—what actually occurs fails to live up with how we imagined it. At the same time, there are occasions when our expectations are quite […]
Confronting Our ‘Overplayed Strengths’
It has long been asserted that a weakness is an overplayed strength. It is, arguably, how weaknesses actually become weaknesses: we don’t know when to stop, and so we keep on doing what got us there in the first place. Confidence becomes arrogance. Perspective becomes paralysis. Knowledge becomes blinkered. It’s an important concept, even if […]
The NSA Crisis And You: Should You Care?
This week has been an interesting one in the intersecting worlds of politics and intelligence, with the exposure in the Guardian that Verizon has been, under court order, providing the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States with a daily record of the transactional details of every single phone call that originates or terminates […]
Challenging Behaviours
“Safety is our number one priority.” This is a common refrain in many organizations, and it has particularly been an area of more recent emphasis in riskier environments: construction, working with heavy equipment, mining and oil & gas exploration. A recent article in Quartz highlights some interesting—and arguably unintended—results from a recent workplace effort to […]
Hacked
It is one of those things that happens to other people, that you read about in the paper. One of those things that couldn’t possibly happen to you. Right up until the point that it does. And so, a couple of weeks ago, that is what happened to me. All of our web sites were […]
Pondering Procurement
As a consultant, preparing proposals are a necessary part of winning business and securing work. On that basis, I do not consider them a ‘necessary evil’; they are simply necessary. They are what allows me to confirm a client’s expectation and needs, propose a solution to those needs, outline how the work will be done […]