Blog
You will find here a variety of topics, all related to people development and leadership. Here are all my posts. Happy reading!
If you are interested to have a talk about any of them, please contact me.
Articles
Empathy
Empathy is defined as “the ability to recognize, understand and share the thoughts and feelings of another person”. It helps us work with others, build relationships and, as it shapes…
Managing by values
In today’s dynamic and rapidly evolving business landscape, effective management practices go beyond mere profitability and performance metrics. Organizations are recognizing the significance of aligning their actions and decision-making with…
Memento mori
In Latin, Memento mori means “remember that you have to die”. It’s a reminder of the inevitability of death and the brevity of our time. As awful as it sounds,…
Purpose
I’ve talked of purpose many times over the years. Today, I want to return to it and offer a different perspective. For many of us, the purpose provides us with…
Self-sabotage
This scenario may sound familiar. You have an important meeting to present your work to your colleagues and managers. You have been working on the presentation for days and still…
Bias
Last week, I was on the subway on my way to work when a couple of people got on. Immediately, the woman next to me moved to a seat farther…
Generational diversity
Generational diversity, like gender diversity, has become a relevant issue because of the impact it has on society. For the first time in history, people from 4 different generations are…
Make decisions
How do you make decisions in this team? A few days ago, I asked this question to a team of students working on a not-so-simple project for one of my…
Value
“Software is just a tool to help accomplish something for people – many programmers never understood that. Keep your eyes on the delivered value, and don’t over focus on the…
Precision questioning
Making decisions is the main job of managers. Often they are not experts on the subject, yet they have to make decisions. Precision questioning is a method to help people…
Women
Yesterday, March 8, was International Women’s Day. While I think there are still many reasons to mark this date on the calendar, I also think that we, women and men,…
Boundaries
Conflict is inherent to human relationships. And yet, there are people who can’t deal with it. Our approach to conflict depends on, among other things, our willingness to take care…
Accountability
The definition of accountability is “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or account for one’s actions”. But that’s not all. Because we’re social animals, we tend to feel obligated…
Creativity
Creativity is one of the evolutionary forces. Without it, humanity wouldn’t be able to solve problems or come up with new ideas. Robert Fritz, in his book The Path of…
Abuse of power
As I watched The Last of Us, the latest HBO series, I began to think about how leaders abuse power to manage extended crisis and the consequences for their people….
Build psychological safety
Last week, I wrote about what psychological safety is and why having it is important in the workplace. This time, I want to devote these lines to tell you how…
Psychological safety
Picture this. You’re in an important meeting. Your team has an urgent problem on the table. There are a couple of people hogging the conversation because there are “the experts”….
Our value
A few days ago, I was listening to America Ferrera in this TED Talk, explaining how she became aware of her value and her right to succeed as she was,…
Beginning of the year
With the beginning of the year, the time to make new resolutions comes. For some people, it’s actually a list of wishes, for others it’s about to plan the next…
Collaboration
This has been a tough year. Since the pandemic struck us, things had changed at many levels. In time, we have come to this new normal, which unfortunately seems like…
Importance of ethics
If it’s legal, it’s right. That’s what many say when asked about some sort of business practices. And yet, recent history shows us the importance of ethics while pursuing business…
Thank you
Today is my birthday. To be honest, I was actually considering skipping my writing today and spend this time doing nothing as a birthday present. But I finally decided to…
Blind spots
We are terrible evaluating our performance. It amazes me how blind we can be when considering self-assessment. If you are interested in growing, you should pay attention to these three…
Perception
Perception is a process by which we gather information coming from our senses, organize and interpret it to give meaning to our environment. The amount of information around us is…
Intuition
Does intuition play a part in a decision-making process? Making decisions is generally hard due to the inherent uncertainty and the complexity of the problem and the pressure of time. Nevertheless,…
Internal barriers
It’s been a long time since I wrote about women in leadership, but today I want to talk about women’s internal barriers and biases. And how they can prevent their…
Staying professional
The other day in class, I was telling my students about the need to work in our self-awareness as a way to develop empathy and being able to understand others,…
Second order thinking
Deciding is often a tension between a long-term want and a short-term need, thus most times is a difficult process where a second order thinking is needed to unravel hidden…
Generalist
A friend of mine always says: I’m not an expert on anything in particular, but I know a little about many things. Being a generalist used to be a challenge,…
Top performer
What is a top performer? Let me tell you why I’m asking you this. The other day while I was driving to work, I was listening to an episode of…
Stoicism
When Epictetus, the Greek philosopher, stated that “that alone is your power, which is our own work; and in this class are our opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions. On the…
Journaling
Awareness is the first step for personal development and having some clarity of thoughts is key in this process. Without having an accurate picture of what we think and believe,…
Ockham’s razor
It is said that simplest explanations are usually the right ones. This statement is known as the Ockham’s razor – after an English philosopher named William of Ockham. The rationale…
The future of work
This week, I gave some lecturers about the future of work, and the effects of digitalization on the workplace. Now I want to share some ideas with you. Being a trending…
Focus
In 2019, Daniel Goleman wrote an article at HBR about how having focus and direct attention is the primary task for a leader. It is not only about getting distractions…
Totally obvious
After some weeks away, I’m here again, hoping that you too had some time to do nothing and have fun. During this time off, I reflected about how our context…
Time to rest
This is my last post before my summer holidays. I will be back with more content on September. With the years, I understand the importance of having time to rest,…
Meta-learning
After listening to an interesting TED Talk from Ray Dalio, this question stuck with me: how do I know I’m right? As arrogant as it can sound, I’m usually right…
Appreciation and recognition
A good leader makes other people feel important and appreciated. Appreciation and recognition are two of the main factors to boost motivation among people, and therefore commitment. Many leaders and…
Self-care
We don’t usually talk about the importance of self-care in leadership, but it’s like other things in life: nobody can take care of others if they are not in a…
Being proactive
Weeks ago, I talked about autonomy, a sine-qua-non condition to intrinsically motivate people. On the other side, organizations need proactive people to make things happen. Being proactive is an essential…
Burnout
Burnout refers to a phenomenon where employees suffer a mix of physical and psychological symptoms due to a continued stress in the working environment. According to the State of the…
Conflict
Many people fear conflict, and yet it is part of life and part of our long-term relationships. Every time we are surrounded by people, there’s a potential occasion for conflict…
Autonomy
Motivation, when lasts, is not an external stimulus. According to the “Self-determination theory”, intrinsic motivation mainly depends on 3 factors: competence, relatedness and autonomy. It is when we feel that…
Prioritization
When everything’s a priority, nothing is a priority. That’s why prioritization is essential, and yet many times we get caught in the trap of start working without a decision on…
Luck
I have luck. Last Friday I was invited, jointly with a friend, an executive in a Swedish company, to give the closing lecture in a leadership course. The professor, another…
Digital leaders
Digitalization changes the nature of organizations. It changes business dynamics, work requirements and needed skills. A more democratic access to information may cause hierarchy and silos to break, and blur…
Win by chance
Everyone can win by chance. Indeed, everyone can win by chance many times. With chance, I mean that there is no correlation between the effort and the results. By winning,…
Distributed leadership
The future is not what it was. Companies can’t predict it anymore, and uncertainty calls for adaptation and flexibility. Trust is the new liquid gold, continued eroded by the effects…
Right attitude
The power of choice and right attitude are up to you. Take a minute and read it again. How does it feel? Victor Frankl says in his book, Man’s search…
Boost creativity
Pablo Picasso once said that all children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up. Children are incredibly imaginative, creative, full of resources; they…
Persuasion
When I work with managers developing their leadership skills, we usually talk a lot about how they make decisions. Complexity, non-linearity, and uncertainty shape a context, in which making decisions…
Stories
The first time I clearly understood that I should start telling stories, I was in my last year of college. An accident waiting to happen I had been working in…
Toxic workplace
Picture a place where only titles, job descriptions, and levels in the hierarchy matter. A place where communication doesn’t flow, and silos are part of the landscape; a place where…
Assumptions
And two years ago, COVID-19 came to change everything. Or that’s what it seems. In my opinion, this pandemic only has accelerated things that were already happening. But, anyway, leaders…
Flexibility
From time to time, I talked about how leaders should assess the context before they make any decision. This context, non-linear and incomprehensible, calls for adaptation and flexibility. We have…
Women helping women
Two days ago, was March 8th The International Women’s day. A day set in our calendars to give voice to the fight against gender discrimination, aiming to a world more…
Real purpose
Leaders need to deal with uncertainty. To make that, they aim to a desired future chosen among all the possibilities. A destiny strongly dependent on what the organization’s purpose is….
Ethics
Last week in Spain, we learnt that, during the worst of the COVID-19 crisis, the government of Madrid awarded a facemask-supplying contract to a relative of Madrid’s regional president. Last…
Reasons
Two years of the pandemic after, we are tired. The future looks more uncertain than ever, and many have lost their motivation. In the middle of the mist, people need…
Impostor syndrome
I’m not worthy. I’m not qualified enough to do this. Not only that, but I’m a poser. This is a fear that at times strikes many of us. This is…
What is essential
The truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought. Or at least, this is what Richard Feynman said. I tend to agree, despite being surrounded every day by…
The loneliness of the leader
If you are a leader, and you feel lonely, you’re not alone. The loneliness of the leader is a well-known phenomenon less discussed than others because we all have the…
What you really want
With your basic needs covered, how do you know what you really want? Many of us are occasionally immersed in a fight with different competing desires: enjoy our dream job…
Difficult situations
After releasing my post last week, I received some feedback, which I really appreciate. It seems easier to have a love-centred mindset when things go well. But, and here goes…
Impact of love
Thinking about how to start this new year in the blog, I’d want to bring something that many people consider far away from business. We don’t usually talk much about…
Learning something new
Right on the new year’s edge, it’s maybe the time to think of learning something new. The process of learning brings along many other things than knowing about a topic….
This time of the year
This time of the year. It’s a time to look back, and a time to look forward. Time to acknowledge things that made us happy, and also to reconsider others…
Leading in crisis
Have you ever been part of an extraordinary team? One of those high performing teams, not only in good times but, more important, in complex times. Leading in crisis is…
Abundance mindset
It was Stephen Covey the first one talking about an abundance mindset and its opponent, a scarcity mindset, and the effects on self-leadership. To frame the topic, I can summarize…
Commitment
Tomorrow, it will be a year since I started this blog. Maybe because of this, I feel like talking about commitment and how it shapes our relationships. Meeting you here…
Contextual intelligence
Some managerial knowledge is universal, and some is specific to a context, a market or a culture. When I teach my students about leadership and management, they learn soon that…
Business as unusual
There were good old days when businesspeople can talk about doing business as usual. Today, they are lucky who can still do business: business as unusual, though. As a consequence…
Fear of change
After having a great conversation (in Spanish) about fear of change, I feel inspired to share with you some of my learnings. To be honest, learning from others while having…
The long run
Being a successful leader today is, among other things, a matter of endurance. Surrounded by uncertainty, what can make the difference is to focus on the long run. A time…
Take responsibility
Not everything in boosting diversity is about the behaviour of the leader. All of us, especially if we are part of a minority group, should take responsibility in promoting it….
Boost diversity
How can you develop the right mix of talent, and create the environment and capabilities needed to face your challenges? How can you boost diversity? If you have read my…
Diversity may be the answer
The post this week is written from the Qatari desert. A great place to enjoy silence and think about how different the world can be depending on from where we…
Non-linear and incomprehensible context
Last year, Jamais Cascio published in his medium account an article called “Facing the age of chaos” in which a new framework, the BANI (for Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear and Incomprehensible…
Emotional management
In the business world, how people manage themselves emotionally is of great importance, even more than many skills or talents. Not managed emotions, either good or bad, can hijack intelligence…
Good feedback
Last week, I recorded a new podcast’s episode talking about feedback. The topic is interesting enough to devote also some lines here. Giving good feedback is an important skill for…
Shared purpose
September is the back-to-school month (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). Either if you’re a student or you’re a worker, you came back with, maybe, some new school year resolutions….
The importance of self-love
Who is the person that talk to you the most? Take a minute and think about it. It’s not your partner, nor your boss. The person who most talk to…
Narrative bias
Back from holidays, I first want to welcome you back to this weekly blog. I hope you had a chance to recharge, both physically and mentally. I did. That’s why…
Because you can
The world is looking at Tokyo, immersed in the Olympic Games, wondering who the best in each category will be. Sports in general, and the Olympics in particular, talk about…
The short-term view
Being able to balance the short-term and long-term views is key for a leader. When chaos reigns and complexity is unmanageable, balance between a short-term stability and a long-term viability…
The four horsemen
According to Patrick Lencioni, in his book “The five dysfunctions of a team”, the pillar to build a high performing team is trust. Without trust, we cannot go further in…
Humour
“I think being funny is not anyone’s first choice”. Probably Woody Allen is right. Changing a bit the context (he was talking about his occupation) and considering life, I wonder…
Working smarter
There are a few truths in life. In fact, as I tell many times to my students, the answer for almost every question is: it depends, meaning there’s almost anything…
The 10th man
“The problem with most people is that they don’t believe something can happen until it has”. This is a quote from a film called World War Z talking about the…
Critical thinking
According to the World Economic Forum, one of the most demanded skills for leaders is critical thinking. I’ve already written about the VUCA world we’re living in is; and how…
All or nothing
One day, a maths teacher wrote the table of 9 on the white board as below: 1 X 9=9 6 X 9=54 2 X 9=18 7 X 9=63 3 X…
The grasshopper and the ants
You’re probably familiar with the tale of the grasshopper and the ants. That funny, eager-to-enjoy grasshopper, hopping around and singing while a group of ants is working hard to ensure…
Self-organizing teams
Self-organizing teams is a trend now on the world. Companies here and there have realized the power of improving teamwork, collaboration and accountability among their people. But just by empowering…
The future of leadership
Leadership has been studied for more than a century now and the approach to the topic experimented many changes. Under this light we could think that leaders in next decades…
Less is more
First time someone told me ‘less is more’, I was a kid, and it was a friend of my parents explaining why having myself covered with many fake rings, bracelets…
What if you were slightly right?
When I started forming as a coach, one of the things that caught me the most was the question ‘what is the 2% of truth?’. That question always makes me…
Fear and ethics
People develop their ethics as a result of an accumulation of values transmitted by family, friends, culture, religion and experience; and ethics are what tells us ‘this is a right…
Making changes
When she called me, I thought she just wanted to have a coffee and a nice talk. No surprise, we have been friends for 20 years now. But, this time,…
Leadership is culturally contingent
What is leadership? If you ask ten people, you probably get ten answers. Many people maybe cannot to define but ‘I know it when I see it’. Then, maybe you…
News
Caminos de Knowmad – The art of feedback
Here it comes! This is my new episode in this podcast: Caminos de Knowmad – The art of feedback (in Spanish). Giving good feedback is an essential skill for a…
Caminos de Knowmad – Communication
This is my second chapter in this podcast, Caminos de Knowmad – Communication. How to get to be better understood (in Spanish). I don’t want this to be a manual,…
Caminos de Knowmad – Women and leadership
Look! This is my first episode in this podcast: Caminos de Knowmad (in Spanish). Caminos de Knowmad is a podcast created by Virginia Cabrera and Alex de Fuenmayor. After knowing…
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