Three Quotations To Consider
Hello Everyone Today’s letter is lucky number 13, our thirteenth letter of the year. We’re in April. Remember where you were this time last year? Yep, locked inside! I went…
Leadership
Read MoreThree Quotations To Consider
Some Leadership Lessons
Dear friends Thank you for the replies to last week’s letter, What World Do You Want? It is never an easy decision for me to turn my attention to the broader socio-political…
The Inequality Virus
Good morning Today is South Africa’s Human Rights Day. In my 6 December letter, I promised to share my reading of Charles van Onselen’s The Night Trains in January. I haven’t been able…
Build Your Life
Good morning everyone We’re in March. I had planned this week’s letter to focus on the tweaks we can make to our work-lives to alleviate stress and burnout. However, I…
Working With Soul
Last week Sihle Nontshokweni celebrated the fact that her children’s book, Wanda, which she had co-authored with Mathabo Tlali had received its first international review. They wrote the book to “encourage young children to love themselves…
Morality Is Not Just A Question Of Individual Conduct
State capture has occupied the imaginations of South Africans for the last few years. For much of that time it was told as a tale of shady politicians and a…
In The Face Of The Unfathomable, Seek Joy
In the face of the unfathomable, the most powerful thing that one can do is to seek hope, joy, and connection. It doesn’t make the nonsensical, sensible. It doesn’t make…
Being a Better Manager
This year will be overwhelming and tiring. In this context, it’s tempting to draw the curtains and hide out until ‘it’s all over.’ Yet, as famous baseball player and coach,…
Despite the backdrop of our pain, South Africa achieves.
Today’s introduction is longer than normal. It’s December, it feels right to reflect a little. Next week will be our last email for the year. I will resume our conversation…
The Power of Listening
Last week’s email reflected on how psychologically unsafe environments destroy value by silencing people or, more insidiously, by creating conditions in which people do not feel safe to speak and so silence…
How Fear Causes Failure
The absolute joy of writing this letter to you each week is the generosity that comes back. After last week’s letter I was given copies of Oliver Sacks’ autobiography On…
Stay Grounded My Friend
Our language often captures age-old truths that science then confirms. We celebrated people who are ‘grounded’. We stress the importance of ‘knowing our roots’. When someone has ‘deep roots’ in…