Moments
With
Marty

Short-term focus is one of the biggest problems in business today. And it’s also one of the most intractable. With CEO tenures in big businesses averaging around 5 years, it’s little wonder that long term value creation takes a back seat.  In the world of executive remuneration, 3 years is considered “long term”… But put […]

Every day, we use different types of power to get things done. For example, if you have children, you probably use a combination of coercive power and reward power without giving it a second thought. “Marty, if you don’t clean your room, there’ll be no devices for the rest of the day”. OR, “Marty, if […]

Written communication in business is pretty poor, for the most part. People put countless hours into writing stuff (emails, procedures, reports, presentations) And it may or may not surprise you to hear that most of that stuff never gets read. For example, very few people bother to look at the reports your company ‘s systems […]

Although we like to create neat definitions for different leadership approaches, every individual has a different style. Your leadership style is unique. It’s a product of your personality, your upbringing, your level of resilience, your belief system, your confidence, your education… I could go on! Any style can be effective, but there are some principles […]

Many company strategies look good on face value, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re effective. There are heaps of reasons for this, but I want to look at 4 of the more common ones. The first problem is that most people don’t actually understand strategy… or, at best they don’t share a common language for […]

I often hear leaders talk about their stakeholders, but I don’t always get the sense that they have clarity around who their stakeholders are and, more importantly, what each of them expects. This is why it’s critical to map your stakeholders… you need to know who they are, and what drives each of them. For […]

There are lots of different schools of thought on which competencies are most useful to help you achieve your career ambitions. I’ve thought about this a lot over my 40 years in businesses…  … working my way up from the bottom of the food chain to the top, and more recently, getting a window into […]

We talk a lot about resilience. These days, just mustering up the capacity to cope with the pressures of everyday life is getting harder. For leaders though, the challenge is even tougher. You need to manage your own physical and mental state – sure – but you also have to model self-mastery for your team.  […]

It’s easy to reduce the process of learning from your mistakes to a few pithy sayings: “Failure is another stepping stone to greatness” “When we give ourselves permission to fail, we also give ourselves permission to excel.” “Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly!” “I never fail — I either succeed, or I […]

Who are your high performers? I’m going to ask you that same question in a few minutes’ time, and see if you get the same answer! It’s surprisingly difficult to identify your high performers. Let me explain this with an example. I once had a client say to me, “Marty, I’ve got this high performer […]