McMaster & Brown

05/01/2024

Have you ever wondered how much more successful your recruitment would be if you had a recruitment framework designed to meet your specific needs and that made your business stand out to your ideal recruits?

If you want to learn how to do that, then book an early bird place on the Successful Recruitment Workshop.

Recruit the best talent and keep them - beat the talent crisis and the great resignation in one decisive step.

03/01/2024

Here is a New Year message that should reach everyone on the planet.

I want to share the message from Mary Robinson, Chair of The Elders and former President of Ireland. Mary Robinson’s opening paragraph says it all,

“A new year offers the promise of a new start. Our world sorely needs a change of direction after the death, destruction and failures of leadership seen in the closing months of 2023.” Read to the end for the link to her full message.

Leadership is where the failure starts, and the solution begins. To do that, they need to create a vision of the future and then engage with all stakeholders in designing the solution. It is not the leader's job to dictate the solution but to create the conditions for solutions to emerge.

I agree with her message 100%. It is time that we all start playing by the rules and stop making excuses for bending them or breaking them. By 'rules', I mean ALL of the rules: our personal, relationship, community, organisation, society, country and our global rules.

How easy is it to stick to ALL the rules? We feel stupid if we do because other people don't, so why should we be the sucker. What of the stupid rules that are imposed on us without our consent, rules that we are forced to accept.

If we are to solve the problems we face in our lives, we have to start at the bottom of the stack of rules. We must begin to stand for the rules we can all accept, sticking to them and holding those in our community to them.

The problem is we abdicate our responsibility for the rules to others.

We speed in our car, and it is ok if we don't get caught, abdicating responsibility to the Police.
We eat junk food, abdicating our responsibility to the food corporations.
We throw our rubbish into the hedges, abdicating our responsibility to the local councils.
We abuse our well-being, abdicating our responsibility to Big Pharma.
We ignore politics and abdicate our responsibility for the future to self-serving politicians.

Suppose we continue to abuse our responsibilities and abdicate our responsibility to others. In that case, we have no right to complain, nor do we have any ability to change the system. We have put that responsibility into the hands of others who do not have our best interests at heart.

Robinson is right to quote Nelson Mandela’s acceptance speech - “We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all… will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity.”

We must enter into a new covenant, a new social contract. Not one dictated by our political leaders, who are more interested in political power and capital, but by the average person on the street. We must all play our part in creating the solutions.

And then our political leaders need to do their job and create the conditions for that to happen.

If you would like to read Mary Robinson's full message, click here:

A new year offers the promise of a new start. Our world sorely needs a change of direction after the death, destruction and failures of leadership seen in the closing months of 2023.

22/09/2023

https://youtu.be/gWGxUiSTsTU

Let's talk if you are struggling to get the team to take effective action. Book a free 30-minute Introduction Call. Click here https://mcmasterandbrownwithad...

19/09/2023

The first review of the new book is in, and what an amazing one it is.
If you are wondering what you could do to improve your leadership performance and are not sure what to do, read this review.
If it resonates, then I heartily recommend reading the book too.

A New Way of Thinking for 21c Business

08/09/2023

At work, are you feeling the leadership gap?

You know, the gap between how you expect your leaders to behave and how they actually behave. The problem is that most leadership models rely on predictable outcomes and being able to see what the future holds. That is not what being a visionary means, though. Visionary leaders have foresight; they can see the shadow of the future here in the present, and they can guide and influence their people to be ready to take advantage of the shadows that materialise.

The more senior you get, the more uncertainty and complexity you have to deal with. There will be more people wanting you to be their champion, to nurture, develop and protect them and to put your self-interest aside and focus on their needs and requirements.

New leaders need to learn how to lead in a non-linear way, balancing uncertainty, complexity, control and freedom, and yet far too many leaders fail to understand how they must behave to achieve that balance.

The function of leadership is to create a safe space, a state where all employees under their care can participate fully, contribute their best and feel appreciated for their contribution.

I call this state The Natural Law of People. Being able to create the conditions that allow the Natural Law of People to flourish in your organisation is a vital leadership skill which we cover in our new book, The Power of Clean Leadership.

If you would like to chat about the leadership gap, DM me, or if you want to discover what Clean Leadership could do for your organisation, click here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0CH28XZ2X

05/09/2023

I am starting the revolution in 2023! Join the Revolution!

Leaders!!! Stop focusing on shareholder value. Shift your attention to creating the right conditions to make a worthwhile experience for all and, in turn, create healthy and profitable organisations.

There is a change in the air. Leaders need to adapt and respond to a new way of working if they are to survive. It’s time for a business revolution, and you’d be brave to turn away and ignore it.

After the turbulent years of the pandemic, the furlough scheme, the great resignation, the great redundancy, and political chaos, there is an urgent need to change how we build and run our businesses.

Our third book, The Power of Clean Leadership, is out today on Amazon. In the ever-shifting landscape of business, 'The Power of Clean Leadership' emerges as an indispensable beacon for founders, corporate leaders, and aspiring entrepreneurs alike, offering profound insights into the evolving paradigm of doing business.

It is a comprehensive compass, guiding leaders through the intricate landscape of modern business with wisdom that transcends the ordinary.

Ruth Farenga, the author of “Next Level Leadership: Nine Lessons from Conscious Leaders”, said, “Where this book stands out is its ability to set out the right conditions needed for people and organisations to thrive.”

Business leaders see clean leadership as a strategic advantage for long-term success, reputation, and stakeholder trust.

Jaye Cowle, Founder of Launch, the happy performance marketing agency, who is B-Corp certified, said, “If the B Corp movement sets out to transform our economy to benefit all people, communities and the planet, then Clean Leadership is the guidance and methodology/framework of how to create a strong positive company culture and confidently lead a people-first business that will thrive.”

The pandemic and its aftermath have demonstrated what bad leadership looks like in both business and political arenas. For aspiring leaders and leaders who desire a new way of doing business, Clean Leadership provides a holistic guide and framework to make whole-scale transformation to revolutionise the way you and your colleagues work.

My business partner, Michael McMaster (creator of the intelligent complex adaptive systems theory), and I have been collating our combined 70+ years of knowledge from running businesses, consulting and developing ideas that have worked for clients. It has been a fascinating and timely journey. It’s now time for the business revolution.

Click here to get your copy of the book today https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CH28XZ2X

Please like and share to help get the message out there!

The Power of Clean Leadership: Learning to Lead with Integrity (Stories From The Edge)

17/08/2023

Solving any problem requires leadership. The bigger the problem, the greater the leadership skill required. The biggest problems for businesses include talent shortage, sustainability, staff retention, rising costs, potential recession and lots of uncertainty.

Our challenge today is that many leaders have grown up in a climate of leadership that has celebrated celebrity and overconfidence and neglected competence and ethical standards.

There is confusion around what it means to be a leader and what the true function of leadership needs to be in today's rapidly changing business and social worlds.

We need a new standard of leadership that provides clear characteristics and skills that leaders need to practice and demonstrate. We call this new standard Clean Leadership.

If you want a different outcome, you need a different form of leadership. If you want a different egg you need a different chicken!

Our new book, The Power of Clean Leadership, is out in September - you can get a free download of Chapter One here - t.ly/kVDvn

Discover how Clean Leadership can help you overcome your business's problems in this increasingly changing world.

02/08/2023

I love this post 'Leaders and their Demons' by my Devon neighbour Guy Singh-Watson for the Wicked Leeks blog on the Riverford Organic Farmers website for two reasons.

First and most important, he specifies that relationship and governance are two vital elements for successful long-term business, and secondly and by no means insignificant, shows like Succession and The Apprentice are mind-blowingly frustrating and unrealistic.

Creating the conditions for powerful and effective relationships to emerge is sadly not a skill many leaders today appreciate having any ability with. And governance is often seen as an inconvenience, an obstacle to be removed or at least avoided.

Our third book, The Power of Clean Leadership, distinguishes the characteristics of what it takes to be a clean leader and the elements that need to exist in the function of leadership. Our current distinctions of leader and leadership are weak and vague. The proof is that both Guy Singh-Watson and Boris Johnson are both called leaders, and both supposedly doing leadership. I suggest that Guy is a Clean Leader delivering Clean Leadership. Johnson, on the other hand, is definitely not.

That is why we need a new distinction of leadership which we call Clean Leadership, and we must start comparing leaders to this new distinction.

Our new book, The Power of Clean Leadership, will be published in September - to get your free download of Chapter 1, click the link in the comments below.

Since we became employee owned, I have come to appreciate that dispersed power and consultation lead to better, safer…

24/04/2023

Looking forward to presenting to the Change Management Institute on May 11th at the University of Exeter on Making Transformation a Success. Far too many change initiatives fail to deliver the intended result, and it is not the fault of the people but the design of the organisation. I will be sharing how you can create the conditions for successful change. If you are making changes to how your business operates, then there will be great value in the talk. Bring a colleague you are working with on those changes and start building your 'change team'.

Making Transformation a Success! (in-person event, Exeter) Transformation is a word that leaders like to use. It’s a bold word that few who use it live up to. It denotes major and ongoing commitment. It is a word that needs to be built on continuously. It is followed up with action, or it is ...

24/03/2023

How do you increase the speed of innovation in a highly regulated market?

That is the topic of my webinar for FinTech Circle on Tuesday. With the advances of open banking and open finance, access to data is key, but the banks fear letting the FinTech startups have power over the customer data.

Join me on Tuesday to find out how FinTech companies can change the conditions in their industry to get their innovations to market quicker.
https://www.bigmarker.com/fintech-circle/Converting-Innovation-into-Profits

28/02/2023

The problem - innovation. The solution CULTUREWORK

The never-ending paradox that business owners have been trying to solve is: to predict and control the business AND have the freedom to be continuously innovative and creative.

Command and control eliminate surprise—and we’ve designed our organisations to do just that!

Control demands people follow specific rules without deviation, like a machine. The purpose of control is to produce predictable outcomes and to limit surprises.

The challenge is to combine having a specific set of rules with the freedom to be innovative and creative so that we actually get surprises. When we combine the two we enable the greatest balance of control and surprise.

It has become a fad to blame management for all things to do with command and control structures. And yet managers are not to blame - it’s the conditions within which they operate that are the source of the problem.

We need to change the conditions to be able to transform the function of management. That's called Culturework.

In that way, organisations will be able to increase their innovation at the same time as converting those brilliant new surprises into profits, importantly, without losing control!

To understand how to release the Power of Management, you can read our latest book...

The ‘Power of Management’ is the second book in a series of seven bite-sized books that hope to guide the reader through this maze. On the surface, it is not a theoretical academic piece, but don’t let that fool you, as McMaster and Brown introduce concepts and language that switches on the li...