Peter Lodemore.

What The World Needs NOW

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 11:29:34 -0800

Welcome to my first blog in a while. I’ve been off-the-map for three years. Call it a sabbatical. But, I'm back at the helm of Galatea Consulting Limited for 2023, doing things differently. It's time for some honesty and I want to explain what's been going on for me.

WARNING: this blog contains appropriately offensive language.

Covid-19 Epidemic

In 2020, when the covid-19 epidemic hit the Uk, my head started spinning with how I could make my business work over Zoom. My company specialises in helping good people become epic leaders, and my methods involve getting whole systems in-the-same-room-at-the-same-time to solve real, shared problems. It requires high levels of engagement, inclusion, and participant to participant conversation. How do you do that in your underpants on a laptop? Lockdown meant business-as-usual was no longer an option for me.

In March 2020, I took the decision to step back from my day-job of 22 years, and do something completely different. Something I'd been wanting to do for many, many years.

Frustrated Artist

I went to a grammar school, which is a fake posh...Read More

The Perils of our Digital Cocoons

Fri, 20 Apr 2018 06:23:08 -0700

Riding my bicycle along the Regent's Canal on Sunday, I couldn't help marvelling at the Spring fecundity of the wildlife you can find in these hidden parts of a city. Seeing my first goslings of the year and their proud, vigilant Egyptian Goose parents; watching the crazed, noisy battles of Coots; the enchantment of the ballet-like behaviour of Swans; and the ever delightful, quacking ducks who seem quite oblivious to the spectacle around them.

I also couldn't help marvelling at the only other people around at stupid-o-clock Sunday morning – joggers - because they all had their face buried in their smart phones. I try to be generous and think, well at least they're being active and doing something about the growing obesity problem. But I really think I'm witnessing the demise of humanity as we turn towards screens and away from what I nostalgically call 'the real world'.

A recent study revealed that the average human is spending over 10 hours a day with their face to a screen. Add to that the time many people spend with earphones in on their commute, cut off from the social world around them, and I think the scale of human-to-human disconnection is reaching epidemic proportions.

Our gadgets and technologies are increasingly cocooning us from each other. We can work from home, even meet a new boyfriend or girlfriend from home too. We no longer need to leave our homes to buy clothes, visit a supermarket, or enjoy our favourite restaurant food; a few clicks on a screen, more endless hours imprisoned in our own home awaiting delivery, and hey presto!

What price are we paying for our new and exciting world of digital cocooning?

The emerging evidence is not good. The increasing squeezing-out of time for face-to-face human connection is being heralded as a Read More

A Foraging Model for Leading and Learning

Fri, 20 Apr 2018 05:41:24 -0700

Shouldn't we be encouraging more initiative, opportunism, self-direction and self-reliance? So why do we keep wheeling-out formal training courses and paying people to attend them? Shouldn't we be encouraging a more resourceful, foraging approach, especially when it comes to leadership development?

Here’s an example.

My kitchen light went on the blink and took longer and longer to come on. So long in fact that the last time I went to make tea it still hadn’t come on by the time I finished and went to switch it off. I called a ‘handy’ friend who suggested it might be the starter motor not the fluorescent tube. I purchased a starter motor for £1 in my local shop, watched a 1m 20 second tutorial on installing a starter motor on YouTube and hey presto!

If I worked for an organisation and got stuck on something, I have the feeling I’d wait 3 months to go on a course about it, be paid to attend it, and patiently wait for the 10 minute bit relevant to me.

Have courses had their day? Especially when it comes to things like leadership development. I'm increasingly convinced that the method is the message. I wonder if the course-as-learning-vehicle undermines our efforts at encouraging people to take initiative and be more self-directed? I think we should be aiming for a Ray Mears not a Jay Rayner model in other words.

Jay Rayner (above) is the restaurant critic for the Observer. He’s paid to go to restaurants, scoff their food and write about the experience. I imagine the main purpose of a Jay Rayner is to help you decide if you want to go to the same place to scoff the food too. He seems happy to be passive, to let others do the hard work, and to be waited on. I am slightly envious he gets paid to scoff food.

Ray Mears (above) is a survival expert. He forages for food while on treks in wild places. He makes cool fires as well as his own bowls and eating utensils, and doesn't wait around to get served. I admire how resourceful Ray is...Read More

The Science of Luck

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 05:06:23 -0700

Are you under pressure to pull something BIG out the bag? Feeling a bit daunted, stuck, or out your depth? Worried they're going to finally discover you don't really know what you're doing?

Would it reassure you to learn that Nobel Prize winners and globally successful innovators didn’t really know what they were doing either? Insulin, penicillin, Viagra, dynamite, pacemakers, microwave ovens, the Post-it note…

Luck has been playing a central role in major scientific breakthroughs for centuries. She (lets call luck a 'she') has been the unsung hero left to sweep the lab while everyone else scurries off to the award ceremony.

But things are about to change.

The Science of Luck is putting Luck centre stage and revealing her weird and wonderful ways. Ohid Yaqub is the British researcher leading a €1.4m programme unearthing the role Luck has played in the history of scientific breakthroughs. His first paper is jam-packed with fascinating insights: Luck is not random, she turns up in a variety of ways, and she seems attracted to certain sorts of people.

If you want Luck to turn up to help you pull something out the bag, here's 9 ways to help seduce her.

Lesson #1: Give A Shit (GAS) about something

Luck does not seem attracted to cynics. Luck came to visit our Nobel Prize winners and creative innovators while they were working on something they GAS about*. If you want Luck to pay you a visit you’ve got to be a GASer. And, the more bold and audacious you are about it the more impressed Luck seems to be. Making a difference, finding a cure, breaking the mold, saving lives… these are like catnip for Luck. Bottom line is you got to GAS about something other than you – sorry!

* Some Nobel Prize winners made a breakthrough in a field they did not initially GIS about...Read More

What's LUCK got to do with Leadership?

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 06:41:07 -0700

This week I was at a sports nutrition company to chat with their CEO about growing their business. During our conversation the CEO, Andrew, said sales had increased over 20% in the last 12 months. ‘That’s great’ I said. ‘How do you think that happened?’ He stroked his beard a while before replying, ‘I’m not sure… luck?’

Before dismissing this idea, what if Andrew is on to something? What if the invisible hand of luck is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in success? What if success finds us despite the ‘brilliant’ (often misguided) things we are actually doing?

Take me for example: I started writing articles in order to reach new clients. However, being completely honest about it (and I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, dear reader), these articles have so far produced exactly ZERO new clients knocking on my door. My success with finding new clients has a lot to do with luck: an unplanned conversation between an existing client and a third party, or I happen to chat to someone on a train or airplane which, funnily enough, is exactly how I met Andrew.

The luck Andrew talked about had similar characteristics to my own. He shared an example of how the guy who drives the forklift in his manufacturing plant started chatting with someone at a wedding reception who happened to be working at a health club; a chance encounter that ultimately resulted in the health club franchise stocking Andrew’s organic protein powder in all 17 of their outlets.

Does this mean I should ditch the writing and travel round and round on the Circle Line? And what should I recommend to Andrew: he sack his sales team and start attending parties?

Not necessarily.

What Andrew is doing is spending about a third of his time walking around chatting with his people. In these unplanned conversations he asks his people how things are going and shares his unbridled enthusiasm for how unique and brilliant their organic protein...Read More

Problems with Learning & Development?

Wed, 14 Mar 2018 08:05:23 -0700

I’ve worked in L&D for over 25 years so I think I’ve earned the right to get a few things off my chest. My accountant isn’t delighted with this idea, calling it professional suicide, but I’ve assured him it comes from a good place: a desire to see if there’s anyone else out there feeling the same way, and help UP OUR GAME.

LEARNING as the dominant narrative for losers and screw-ups

‘There are lessons we need to learn… ‘ This is what Eddie Jones, the head coach of the England rugby team was saying on Saturday after we got thumped by the French. Watch any kind of sport and you will see the losing team’s manager mumble something about LEARNING during their painful, sheepish, post match interview.

And it’s not just coming up in sport; LEARNING is increasingly the dominant narrative around screw-ups: when hospitals let down patients, when police let down victims, when politicians or businesses get caught bending the rules… up pops someone to say ‘there are lessons we need to learn’.

Is LEARNING starting to feel remedial to you too? Are we becoming increasingly adrift from the language of success? What else concerns you about L&D?

World of Learning

The learning industry does seem to inhabit a world of its own. I go to a conference in Birmingham most years called World of Learning. I often wonder what a line manager would make of it? While most everyone else in business seems to be selling benefits, we seem stuck on buying features. Slap ‘Latest Neuroscientific Thinking!’ on a typewriter and you’ll find a queue to buy it.

Why? We all want to be distinctive, right? Organisational buyers in L&D are no different. But what's distinctive within our own narrow community is not necessarily going to fly with the people we exist to serve. I wonder whether a NEURO label helps bolster our own self esteem issues?

If...Read More

Personal Growth & Tomatoes

Wed, 28 Jun 2017 09:46:12 -0700

This year I started growing tomatoes for the very first time. I planted the seeds in a starter tray, tended them with love and care, and watched with child-like glee as they sprouted and grew.
About 6 weeks ago I transferred one to a large pot, one to a medium pot, and left the rest in the starter tray - I'm limited for space, only having a balcony.
What’s amazed me is how container size has totally dictated the size of each plant.
The seedlings in the starter tray grew to about 8 inches tall and stopped.
The plant in the mid sized pot is at least 3 times the size of those in the starter tray.
The plant in the large pot dwarfs the one in the medium pot, a giant compared to its siblings in the starter tray.
There are different reasons as to why this size difference occurred. But I like this one best: each plant grew according to the expectations I gave it.
And this, dear reader, is key to how personal growth works too.
… And leadership, coaching, parenting, teaching, etc…
www.Peterlodemore.com
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Leading Strong

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 06:12:32 -0700

A strong leader is hard to find, so it seems. A recent global study found that over two thirds of organisations are NOT getting what they need from people in leadership roles (May 2017). Weak leaders come to work but don’t really show up, not when it comes to crucial aspects of leadership like addressing poor performance, people management, inspiring teams, and building culture.
Flaccid leadership – or lack of leadership accountability, as they call it in the study - is hitting the bottom line, with weak-leader firms proving less agile when it comes to leading change, exploiting new ideas – like disruptive technologies – or getting new ideas to market. And I can’t imagine these firms are much fun to work at; I bet they struggle to attract or retain top talent; and I cant believe their customers aren’t noticing all this.
So, dear reader, what’s to be done about it? How do we bring more juice to organisational leadership to solve what is arguably one of the biggest issues facing organisations today?
The first thing to do is accept that the squillions of dollars being thrown at leadership development worldwide each year is not producing strong leaders. IMHO, it’s often too academic and based on tedious quantitative research; too feature orientated (‘Latest Neuroscientific Thinking’…) rather than result-focussed; too utopian, spewing out idealised lists of strong leader behaviours; or too ‘candy-flossed’ and sanitised, papering-over the shadowy realities - the grunt and grind - of everyday leadership life.
So here’s my solution. Why not find real people, doing real leading – strong and successful leaders - and listen to what they talk about when they talk about their experience of leading? A qualitative, more personal, human approach. Leadership gold, straight from the horses mouth, so...Read More

Are you READY to be Disruptive?

Mon, 01 May 2017 05:44:34 -0700

The first installment of my interview with Clive Freeman, ‘Disruptivity and the Idea Economy’, focused on how Outsiders are re-imagining marketplaces and disrupting traditional business models, and how easy it is to get left behind, addicted to our reality-sampling and limpet-like ways, as businesses often are.
This second and final installment brings these issues inside the cozy walls of the organisation. If all this stuff is going on out there, on a macro level, how do we start to grapple with it in here, as leaders? Are you really ready to disrupt the status quo of your team or organisation? Or ready to be corporately heartbroken, as a disruptive employee does not follow your rules? And I will delve into how an original and mischievous person like Clive sustains his identity and mojo inside a global giant like Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
‘Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace’ is a book Clive had read early in his career. I loved the title. Its premise is that creativity is crucial to business success. But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a ‘giant hairball’ - a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems.
But it was written 20 years ago. So, how are today's new breed of organisation grappling with the hairball?
Day 1 and Day 2
Despite the phenomenal growth of a business like Amazon, their Chief Exec, Jeff Bezos, says they are still on Day 1. What he means by this is Day 1 is where you are innovating, and obsessing about your customers and distinctiveness in the marketplace. Day 2 is steady-state, when you start consolidating because you think you've made it. Never arrive at Day 2, is how he puts it. Day 2 companies...Read More

Disruptivity and the Idea Economy

Sun, 30 Apr 2017 06:06:26 -0700

Clive Freeman is Director of Strategic Customer Development with Hewlett Packard Enterprise. It's a global role in business development in one of the biggest technology firms on the planet, with revenues exceeding $52 billion in 2015.
Clive is brilliant, playful and mischievous, and this first instalment is about how he sees the business world changing.
The Age of the Idea Economy
How can you have a hotel empire without owning a single hotel?
Airbnb. It's an idea. An idea currently valued at around $30 billion. The original idea was to buy 3 air mattresses to put up visitors as a way of helping pay rent. The bigger idea was to create a technology platform and online marketplace to enable others to do the same. 10 years on and Airbnb is helping over 3,000,000 people ‘pay their rent’.
An Exchange of Resources
Airbnb is doing something beautifully simple. It's creating a market place for the exchange of resources. On the one hand you have people with spaces in places, on the other there's people shopping for spaces in places (about 150 million of them, at last count). Airbnb is resource matching.
I love this simple and elegant way of looking at how business relationships can work: as an exchange of resources.
What’s the exchange going on in your business? What’s really going on? And what about leaders and followers, what’s the exchange going on there?
I’m going to return to this way of looking at things when I blog about Learning & Development (‘Putting the Dust in Industry’).
Clive helps global businesses de-construct their business models. And put them together again in a new and different way. A bit like Lego, but utilizing cutting edge technology.
Clive’s a ‘Re-Imaginer’. He brings incredible intellect, and expertise with technology to helping clients re-conceptualise their business models.
But there’s...Read More