Moments
With
Marty

We generally talk about stress like it’s a bad thing. Putting people under stress is something that many leaders try to avoid. Why? Well, if you put people under stress, then maybe they’ll feel bad and won’t like you anymore. And because of our natural conflict aversion, we want our people to like us. We […]

Have you ever questioned your boss about a particular task, and at the end of a brief exchange, he simply says: “Look, just do it, OK?”  I call these leaders “Nike bosses”, for obvious reasons. Although I’m sure no one sets out to become a Nike boss, sometimes it’s simply the product of a leader […]

It can be a little daunting to take on a new role, especially when it’s at a higher level than the roles you’ve previously held.  And it doesn’t matter whether you’ve been promoted internally, or you’ve been appointed from outside the company: you need to set strong expectations right from the get go. It’s really […]

In my experience, simplicity goes hand-in-hand with focus. You’ve probably heard the expression “trying to boil the ocean”. This creates a great visual of what happens when you spread your attention too thinly to try to achieve a broad range of outcomes, and ultimately achieve very little. Do you remember as a child taking a […]

Your formal qualifications are your ticket to the dance. You can’t practice as a lawyer, a doctor, or an electrician unless you’ve been accredited by a reputable academic institution, as having successfully navigated a process learning and critical assessment. It tells potential employers two things: the first is that you’ve managed to achieve a basic […]

I love Malcolm Gladwell: his book Outliers is one of my all-time favorites. When Gladwell talks, I listen: even if I don’t agree with his views, they’re always incredibly thought-provoking. You probably know that decision-making is a subject that’s close to my heart: it’s a critical part of strong leadership. So when I heard Gladwell […]

There’s no doubt that systemic bias exists in hiring – but sometimes, even with the best intentions, it’s really difficult to improve diversity. Quite often, you’re simply dealing with a shallow pool of talent. For example, in engineering and technology-based industries, the pool of candidates is still predominantly male. And this probably starts quite early […]

Well-run businesses can be boring. They don’t experience frequent crises and they don’t encounter surprises at every turn. Why? Because the leaders understand risk, and they plan accordingly, avoiding the majority of disasters that other companies are routinely forced to face.  As you may know, I started my career in IT, well before this was […]

There are many ways to end up in the C-suite. Probably the most common, and the most reliable, is to join a company where you start in a technical role as say, an accountant, lawyer, or analyst etc. and work your way up.  So you just work hard, and wait for your promotions.  In larger […]

They say that the best disinfectant is sunlight, and I’m a huge believer in that principle. If my direct reports in corporate heard it once they heard it a thousand times: transparency is everything.  When there’s any bad behavior behind closed doors, bringing it into the light and dealing with it appropriately is critical to […]