We live in an era of great distraction. There is more information more readily available and constantly competing for our attention, a feeling of less time to take it all in, and as a result, we are more easily distracted than ever.

Coming into the workshop, everyone was caught up in their individual realities, playing the ‘survive the day-to-day’ game that so often takes over. It becomes consuming, narrow and frantic – and can be exhausting for leaders and teams alike.  

When it comes to pitching ideas and where you need to convince someone to back you, there are three things that make for consistently successful presentations.

And just like that, there goes the Easter weekend.

For many clients, this is where the first-half performance starts to properly come into view. And with just over two months to go, the results are coming in as to what will and won’t make it across the line before the mid-way point of 2023.

This is one of the most common coffee questions I get asked. It’s right up there with, “What are you seeing happening? How are others going? What are people focusing on?”.

Everywhere you look, there’s a digital device with a face glued to it. Whether that’s on trains or planes, on the sofa, in meetings or even across the table at dinner. We’re truly living life through a lens. Full disclosure, I count myself as one of those people too – and this is certainly not a rant about how devices and the content we consume are changing society. Rest assured, I’ll keep that for another day. This is more a reflection on whether our digital reliance means we are losing our connection to storytelling.

I spend a lot of time with teams – executive teams and departmental leadership teams all the way through to operational units.  One differentiating factor between them all is simply cohesion.   

It has been more than a little while since I have had such a substantial piece of work reviewed, critiqued and analysed. I can honestly say I went in optimistically nervous. I was invested in the idea of having an outside perspective to make my work as strong as possible, but if I am completely honest, I really wasn’t looking forward to it.  

Human beings like to be able to compartmentalise things and give them a label. It helps us compare and contrast, and make sense of the world around.

Have you ever created a piece of work and agonised for days, weeks, even months after, while you collate, curate and further create – only then to begin to question whether it is correct, good enough, worth sharing, complete or ready for the world?  

We have all become fixated on goals, both personally and professionally.  

But here’s the bad news: The goal doesn’t actually matter. I mean, it does of course – no one’s denying that goals don’t win games. But it’s certainly not the most important part.  

The journey I’ve taken from having that very first acorn of an idea to holding a finished manuscript still feels more than a little surreal. And when I say finished manuscript, by that I mean I’ve now done most of my bit. After my editor, Michael, completed the first major edit, I then reviewed all the changes, made adjustments to improve readability and finished off the last few outstanding sections.

Without sounding dramatic, there are some systems, such as nuclear power plants, with highly complex operations. That complexity can be hard to stay on top of over decades of operation, and simple human error can lead to catastrophic consequences.

I’ve recently been in numerous conversations regarding vision, mission, purpose, values, and behaviours. There’s been confusion, complexity – and even outright rejection.

Does the drive for expansion now diminish your value?

I was never great with submitting homework and waiting for the teacher to hand it back, crossed through with red ink. In fact, it became a hate – hate relationship. So you can just imagine how I felt sending off 55,000 words in the form of the manuscript for my first book, Winning Presentations.

One of the great challenges with design is its subjectivity and getting caught up in form over function, how it looks versus what it is there to do. And this can lead to many varied views from all quarters. This can certainly be the case with book covers, as I have recently experienced.

Bonza is all set to become Australia's newest airline in a domestic market currently dominated by Qantas and Virgin. Their strategy is far from new, but it requires a discipline many struggle with: a relentless focus on a very specific customer segment.

I had a day off recently, hired a jet ski, and went exploring Sydney’s beautiful waterways for the day. It’s always nice to experience something you wouldn’t normally do to expand your perspective of the world.

Three things have stood out this year that I am confident will remain a huge focus moving into 2023 and beyond.

You can feel the intensity is still there, but the focus is definitely narrowing to the imaginary finish line of that first day of leave.

What can you do today to make next year even better? What is the one singular thing that will impact everything?

The retention and attraction of great talent is a real challenge across almost every industry I work with.

What is interesting is the approaches taken to try and deal with this and how most of these misses tackling the underlying issue.

Newsflash: The products and services you make are of no interest to your customers. Sorry, but it's true. They just don’t care. And if you’re waiting for a witty twist to this tale, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.

In our growth-orientated world, we all keep on wanting more. And in business, one of the levers to grow top-line and bottom-line numbers is to simply charge more. But this behaviour can backfire when it is done without a strategy, or a thorough appraisal of the value proposition.

If we embrace all conflict with gusto, we risk endorsing the wrong behaviour. And if we outlaw it, we risk stifling innovation, progress and healthy open conversation.  

We operate with this bias that complexity makes us look more intelligent and inherently makes things more valuable. I can charge more for something that others don't understand, and complexity is needed for complex problems – right?  

The Columbia disaster was a tragedy that marked the beginning of the end of the Space Shuttle program and the world's only reusable spaceship. And one PowerPoint slide might, just might, have changed that.

As a leadership team, do you know the job that only you can do, what you should be focused on above and before everything else? Do you know where to look to see if you are making progress or heading off course?

The world doesn’t need any more presentations, and it certainly doesn’t need any more pointless ones.

I think we all know this; why? Because we have all created a plan after a workshop, planning session or something a little fancier like a retreat, where nothing has happened. Post-it notes get turned into a long list of steps that rarely appear after the first meeting.