McLean & Company

McLean & Company partner with organizations to create a workplace that meets today’s needs and prepares organizations for the unknown future.​

Everything we do is backed by data and best practices, so you can make informed decisions and know exactly what to do next. Our memberships are designed to provide what you need to drive the organization forward – from full-service assessments to practical action plans, impactful training, and more. ​

Visit our website to learn how we can help you create a workplace where everyone thrives.

Executive Counselor

Lambton College

As Director People and Organizational Development I was responsible for the delivery of the following corporate services: Organizational Development, Employee Relations and Strategic Workforce Planning in support of the College’s strategic directions and operational priorities.

Director - People & Organization Development (CHRO)

London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC)

As Transformation Lead for the Continuous Improvement Initiatives across LHSC – I was responsible for supporting the startup and long term success of the Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Centre of Excellence. In this role I led the Centre of Excellence Team responsible for the the following outcomes:

1. Culture Transformation Leadership: Overall CQI transformation program management,  culture change leadership strategy, monitoring progress and sustaining the corporate improvement initiatives and the CQI management system.
2.     Knowledge Development: Maintain and evolve CQI approach and infrastructure  ensuring consistency.
3.     Leading Corporate Improvements & Coaching Support: Lead corporate CQI initiatives and develop organizational improvement capability through training & coaching. In addition, manage and support projects and provide coaching for project events and the CQI Management System.
4.     Training and Development: Develop and deliver training to all staff and support train the trainer initiatives.

Transformational Change Strategy Executive Lead - Continuous Improvement of Care

Responsible for building and leading the team of HR professionals who provided solutions-based talent management consulting services including, leadership strategy development, change management, organizational design, leadership recruitment & compensation, succession management and performance management. 

-Guided the consulting team that redesigned and implemented a standardized set of staff competencies and a new performance development process for 12,000 employees in a workplace with multiple collective agreements 

-Executed an organization-wide talent management strategy – 350 leaders are systematically evaluated and development/succession plans were created for each individual on an annual basis

-Directed the process and systems redesign to generate “Talent Management Metrics” enabling senior management to have line of sight on the necessary analytics to support the continuous improve the talent management strategy  

-Coached a team of consultants, specialists and project leaders to successfully deliver performance development and talent management programs, recruitment and management compensation services for our 350 leadership clients. 

- Trusted Advisor to the CHRO &  members of the senior leadership team on matters related to talent strategy

Senior Manager -  Talent Strategy & Organization Development

I was responsible for orchestrating the execution of a comprehensive culture change strategy designed to significantly change the patient and family experience.

In 2014, I was honoured to receive the London Health Science Centre President’s Award for Leadership for successfully leading the change management strategy.

Change Strategy Executive Lead, Patient Experience London Regional Cancer Program

GetKeepGrow inc.

Chief Talent Officer

GoodLife Fitness

Provided strategic leadership to a team of HR/OD professionals to execute the re-alignment of HR and organizational effectiveness services and programs in support of the business strategy and emerging talent requirements. (6,000 employees across Canada) Developed and directed the execution of a comprehensive human resource strategy. Provided strategic HR council to the CEO/COO/CFO and senior leadership teams. Transformed the HR function into a consultative, results-driven, customer centric service delivery team.

Director - Human Resources & Organization Effectiveness (CHRO)

Fanshawe College

Adjunct Professor Human Resources

Ontario Government

Recognized with the Ontario Public Service Award for Human Resource Management Innovation.

Senior Consultant, Organization Development/HR Strategy, Attorney General of Ontario

Mayne Nickless North America

Regional Senior Manager

Mayne Nickless North America 

Major Account Manager

National Operations Manager

A strategic human resources leader & leadership coach with over 25 years of bringing people-focused solutions to the most niggly business challenges to achieve results. With experience across the spectrum of HR practices, David’s specialities include:  talent management, executive coaching, process improvement, organizational change and transformation and leadership development.

Dave cofounded “get keep grow inc” a  Canadian employee engagement and retention professional services corporation.




Please note views and opinions expressed are my own and do not represent the views of my employer

The most essential skills for 2030?:
They’re not just technical. They’re strategic.

 Jeroen Kraaijenbrink shared this helpful original post and infographic:

This chart from the World Economic Forum shows what employers expect to matter most by 2030.

In the upper-right quadrant—skills that are both core today and expected to grow in importance—we see:

-> Analytical thinking
-> Resilience, flexibility & agility
-> Leadership & social influence
-> Motivation & self-awareness
-> Creative thinking
-> Systems thinking
-> Curiosity & lifelong learning

These aren’t niche capabilities. They’re the core drivers of strategy in action.

Yes, technological literacy, AI and data skills matter too. But the bulk of what’s rising isn’t just technical—it’s about how people think, adapt, lead, and execute in a changing world.





Acknowledgment: original post reposted here and infographic by Jeroen Kraaijenbrink  



#chro #hr #ceo

David McLean

Are you or your organization intentionally leveraging 70 20 10? “70/20/10 helped us to see that ‘Learning’ (i.e. education) and learning (with a small 'l') were very different things.”

“The evidence suggested that ‘Learning’ - with its courses and classrooms - actually had very little impact on learning, and that learning was really all about the challenges people face and their interactions with others.  And so organisations have started to move away from ‘Learning’ and started to do learning instead and that, I think, is progress.”

Very grateful to Charles Jennings for an email exchange I had with him regarding the research and dispelling the common misperceptions around “70 20 10” 

“There’s no doubt the work of Bob Eichinger & Mike Lombardo and the team at the Center for Creative Leadership was fundamental in highlighting a critical fact – that most learning, most of the time, comes not from courses and programmes, classrooms, workshops and eLearning, but from everyday activities

We’ve known for years that the ‘70+20’ are critical and that it’s in these zones that most learning happens. It’s now time to put this knowledge into action.

More recently, researchers have been validating the importance of the learning that happens as part of the daily workflow. One example of is the work of Professor Andries de Grip and his team at the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Professor de Grip’s 2015 report ‘The importance of informal learning at work’ explains that On-the-job learning is more important for workers’ human capital development than formal training.”


***links to additional resources in the comments below and to the original article that the infographic is found in and special thanks to  Monte Pedersen  for bringing this HBR article to my attention 



#learning #education #702010 #performance #training #futureoflearning #leadershipdevelopment #leadership #management

“If you can define the problem differently than everybody else in the industry, you can generate alternatives that others aren’t thinking about.” - Roger L. Martin, The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking

The following is an original post by Jeroen Kraaijenbrink: 
 
The most powerful ideas are born in paradox.
Between creative and logical thinking. 
Not “either-or” but “both-and.”

When solving complex problems, we’re often told to “be creative.” Other times, the advice is to “be logical.” But the real challenge is that both are necessary and that they often pull in opposite directions.

Creative thinking (divergent) asks us to open up possibilities.
It pushes us to explore, question assumptions, and imagine without limits.

Logical thinking (convergent) asks us to narrow down.
It pushes us to test, synthesize, and focus on what is feasible.

Too much creativity without logic, and ideas remain fantasies.
Too much logic without creativity, and solutions are incremental at best.

The paradox is that real progress requires holding both modes at once. First expanding the field of vision, then zooming in with sharp focus.
It’s not “either-or.” It’s “both-and.”

That rhythm—divergence and convergence—is how possibility becomes progress.

Do you apply both types of thinking in balance? Or do you overemphasize creative or logical thinking?

Acknowledgment: Visual: Timothy Timur Tiryaki, PhD  

===
Announcement: Jeroen Kraaijenbrink is about to launch the Big 5 of Strategy—a research-based framework that helps people build the core strategic competencies needed to thrive in today’s fast-changing world. The assessment goes live in two weeks, but you can already join the hundreds of people already on the waiting list at big5ofstrategy.com to be among the first 1000 participants.

What small steps will you take today?

“Be happy now. It's a great Western disease that we'll be happy in the future - when we get higher status or that BMW or that promotion or this project finished. Instead, be happy now”.-Marshall Goldsmith  


The following is an excerpt of an interview with Marshall Goldsmith in 2011:

“A friend of mine happened to interview old people who were dying. Three themes emerged in their personal advice. 

1️⃣The first was summed up in three words: 
Be happy now. Not next week. Not next month. Not next year. Be happy now. It's a great Western disease that we'll be happy in the future – when we get higher status, or that BMW, or that promotion, or this project finished. Instead, be happy now.

2️⃣The second theme was about friends and family. When you're 95 and on your death bed, no employees are waving goodbye. It's only family and friends.

3️⃣Third, if you have a dream, go for it, because if you don't when you are 35, you may not when you're 85.

The advice old people gave professionally isn't much different. Have fun. Life is short. Do whatever you can to help people – not for status, but because the 95-year-old you will be proud if you did help people and disappointed if you didn't. Finally, old people almost never regret the risk they took and failed; they regret the risk they didn't take.”

👉🏿What small steps will you take today?


***link to original article in the comments box below 



Acknowledgement: infographic derived From Mindful's interview with Bronnie Ware, author of The Top Five Reqrets of the Dying.



#leadership #selfactualization #mindfulness #consciousleadership

My latest project: MarshallGoldsmith.ai Ask me any question. Everything I know is available for free! | Thinkers50 Hall of Fame | #1 Executive Coach | #1 Leadership Thought Leader | #1 NYT Bestselling Author

Leading Change is Essential for Continued Success in a VUCA World

Are you leading change using a proven model/approach or change process?  

Choosing the right model will support achieving your desired outcome......It’s like playing golf you need different clubs for the different conditions and situations you face on a particular hole.

What change management models have you used that you would you add to my list?

There is no “silver bullet” process- context will inform your choices 


✴️12 Change Leadership Models 

- what’s missing? What would you add?

1) Influencer methodology from Crucial Learning   

2) Transformational change and the change leaders roadmap from Being First, Inc.   and Linda Ackerman Anderson, Ed.D. & Dean Anderson, Ed.D.  

3) Lean Process Improvement- Toyota production system - A3 Methodology (see Tracey Richardson✏️  for more)

4) McKinsey & Company  7-S Model & Influence Model

5) The ADKAR Change Management Model from Prosci  

6) Bridges’ Transition Model & Kübler-Ross Change Curve

7) Kotter’s theory from John Kotter 

8) Maurer 3 Levels of Resistance and Change Model from Rick Maurer 

9) Deming Cycle (PDCA)

10) Lewin’s Change Management Model from Kurt Lewis known as Unfreeze – Change – Refreeze model 

11) Transformational change leadership model
from James V. Downton ,James Burns  & Bernard M. Bass

12) SCARF model by Dr. David Rock  

* the list as in no particular order


✴️✴️✴️ highly recommend 📚Michael Bungay Stanier  new podcast “change signals”
Absolutely brilliant exploration of what’s working in organizations when it comes to change leadership.


***additional resources in the comments below 


#chro #leadership #changemanagement #changeleadership

Host of the "Ask Dr. Change" podcast. I coach and develop senior leaders and change consultants in how to consciously succeed in organization transformation.

Speaker, author, & strategic advisor to the C-Suite. Human development and organization transformation thought leader. Catalyzes transformation in leaders, their organizations & cultures to co-create a better future.

🏎Retired from Teaching Lean Inc and Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY | Author of The Toyota Engagement Equation📕 Sharer of Collective wisdom the past 37 yrs.

CEO, author, speaker

Helping transformational leaders find modern change mastery (pod & newsletter) // Author of ‘The Coaching Habit’, best-selling book on coaching this century // Thinkers50 Hall of Fame // Rhodes Scholar

The CHRO Playbook…A revolutionary and road-tested capability framework to achieve HR excellence.

The role of the CHRO has never been more critical or more complex. Today’s CHROs are expected to drive their organizations forward – balancing strategic vision with operational execution, all while influencing a diverse set of stakeholders. The CHRO Playbook provides a structured roadmap, trusted guidance, and relevant insights to help HR executives anticipate roadblocks, navigate detours, and unlock the influence needed to drive organizational success.

The CHRO Playbook is more than a framework – it’s the path forward. Built for CHROs by CHROs, the Playbook combines a proven capability model, curated tools, and the expert guidance and partnership of a dedicated Executive Counselor to help you lead with clarity, deliver measurable impact, and unlock lasting influence.

1. Follow a roadmap built for the duality of the CHRO mandate.
CHROs must apply both strategic foresight and operational rigor in their role. The Playbook outlines essential capabilities – both strategic and operational – that CHROs must balance with intention. From designing a business-aligned HR strategy to applying talent analytics, every capability leads to the ultimate outcome: organizational influence.

2. Pair the roadmap with a trusted copilot.
The Playbook includes more than just tools and research. An Executive Counselor serves as your trusted partner, helping you apply insights, navigate boardroom dynamics, and translate strategy into impact. This seasoned HR practitioner helps you transform the Playbook concepts into action.

3. Focus on what moves the needle.
Connect capability building to outcomes that accelerate and elevate your impact. With a comprehensive assessment, curated resource catalog, and built-in success measures, the Playbook cuts through the noise to shine a spotlight on what’s most relevant for you, your team, and your organization.


The CHRO Playbook provides a structured and proven framework, along with Executive Counselor guidance and the most relevant research and tools, to help you:

✴️ Clarify strategic and operational capabilitiesthrough a revolutionary and road-tested framework.

✴️ Strengthen influence and make measurable progress with experienced 



#chro #hrexecutive

Do you want to build an elite team?
And create meaning at work?

What follows is a repost of an original post by Oliver Aust  

It's not magic. It's the power of rituals.

Rituals can help you build a team that’s more connected, engaged and driven.

A team that feels meaning. 

This week on Speak Like a CEO, I speak with renowned psychology professor Michael Norton of Harvard Business School. 

Michael is the author of The Ritual Effect, and he shares how smart leaders use rituals to shape their organizations from the inside out.

Here are 7 powerful insights:

🔹 1. Beyond the Surface: Rituals aren't just about fun activities; they forge a shared identity, purpose, and values that define your company's DNA.

🔹 2. More Than Habits: Rituals are imbued with emotion and meaning, creating a sense of connection and purpose that habits simply can't match.

🔹 3. The Power of "We": From team chants to company-wide traditions, rituals create shared experiences that bind people together and foster a powerful sense of belonging.

🔹 4. From the Bottom Up, Not Top Down: The most effective team rituals arise organically, reflecting the team's unique culture and values. Empower your people to create them!

🔹 5. Meaning in the Everyday: Discover how rituals can transform your workplace culture, injecting meaning into daily routines and making employees feel more connected to their purpose.

🔹 6. The Ritual Advantage: Learn how rituals can enhance team performance, improve communication, boost morale, and even reduce employee turnover.

🔹 7. Craft a Culture of Connection: Discover how to create an environment where meaningful rituals can flourish, strengthening your team's bond and driving organizational success.

His insights are pure gold for all leaders who are serious about creating a workplace where people feel valued, connected, and inspired.

🎧 Tune in to the full episode (link in comments).



📌 And follow Oliver Aust  for more strategies on leadership and communication.

What is your organization’s approach to managing talent?  Are competencies a foundational component of your organization’s Talent Management Framework?

Competencies provide a common language and understanding of how work is completed across the organization. Without a competency framework, organizations run the risk of inconsistent or biased practices that affect all other areas of talent management.

An effective competency framework creates a common and consistent frame of reference for the entire organization

Benefits of a Competency Framework:

1️⃣Common Language  Provides a standardized glossary or lexicon that HR, management, and employees share when discussing the knowledge, skills, and attributes required to do a job.

2️⃣Culture  A common understanding of those competencies that most contribute to success improves the likelihood that those behaviors will occur. Competencies also tie decision making to bigger-picture organizational values.

3️⃣Compliance  Standardized competencies make employment, promotion, and pay decisions more transparent in order to comply with legal and regulatory requirements.

4️⃣Talent Acquisition  Outlining the necessary competencies for the future workforce is crucial in order to attract, interview, and select the best candidates for roles in the organization.

5️⃣Performance Management  Performance metrics, assessment, feedback, and communication regarding performance is predictable, standardized, and tied to appropriate incentives.

6️⃣Learning & Development  Knowing which competencies are central to specific job groups and roles allows better prioritization and allocation of resources to training and developing those competencies.

7️⃣Succession Planning  Understanding which competencies are crucial to key roles in the organization prioritizes succession planning for those roles and helps to better assess candidates for succession


***link to additional resources in the comments box below 



Acknowledgment: post based on original research and content by McLean & Company  


#humanresources #hr #chro #leadership #leadershipdevelopment

One of the best things about business travel is meeting, interesting people, and hearing their story…

From the woman from wales who shared her story with me about spending four months walking Pacific Crest Trail… to the 23 year old who just started her career as a bush pilot in the far north of Canada… who shared with me stories of taking scientist to the far north and taking country music legends there too…to the surgeon from Little Rock, Arkansas, who developed groundbreaking practises in his field …to bumping into the 16th Prime Minister of Canada, Joe Clark in a hotel lobby, sharing stories with one another of our Canadian family heritage and upbringing and talking about town of Kincardine …Joe was an absolute delight to meet…so humble, curious and such an outstanding listener 


* Joe Clark was a Canadian Prime Minister from May 1979 to March 1980. As the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, he defeated Pierre Trudeau in the 1979 election to become Canada's youngest prime minister at age 39

Are you hiring & promoting for expertise or attitude?  Why don’t organizations hire for attitude and train for expertise?

One of my favourite authors and speakers is Seth Godin.  I highly recommend Seth’s blog posts and today I am sharing a post by Seth Godin 🌔 with you that resonated with me:

Expertise vs Attitude 
by Seth Godin 

“The typical online job site lists millions of jobs. And just about every one of them is a cry for expertise.

From the title to the requirements, companies hire for expertise.

Logic helps us understand that only one out of ten people are in the top 10% when it comes to expertise. And that means that most companies are settling for good enough. If the organization needs people with expertise in the top decile, they’re going to have to pay far more and work far harder to find and retain that sort of skill.

So most companies don’t try. They create jobs that can be done pretty well by people with a typical amount of expertise.

That means that the actual differentiator in just about every job is attitude. From plumbers to carpenters to radiologists to pharmacists, someone with extraordinary soft skills (honesty, commitment, compassion, resilience, enrollment in the journey, empathy, willingness to be coached… the real skills that we actually care about) is going to outperform.

If this is so obviously true, then why don’t organizations hire for attitude and train for expertise?”

***link to the original post and additional resources below 



Acknowledgment: Seth Godin 🌔 & infographic by Jagan Mantha



#leadership #recruitment #talentacquisition #talentmanagement #management #leadership #chro #humanresources

21 bestsellers, founding editor of the Carbon Almanac, blogger and entrepreneur.

I am always up for some “Stoic Wisdom” especially in these unprecedented times. Which of these 10 stoic principles stand out for you?

The following is an infographic and post from one of my favourite content creators on LinkedIn: Jeroen Kraaijenbrink 

 In a world of chaos,  people look for new tools to cope.
But what if the tools are already there, and have been there for a very long time?

When facing new conditions, our first impulse is to look for and build new solutions.
Better frameworks. Smarter apps. More data.

But the best tool I’ve found for navigating uncertainty and chaos was written two thousand years ago. It’s called Stoicism.

Stoicism doesn't mean detachment or emotionless endurance. It means a practical philosophy that helps you stay grounded when everything around you shifts.

I try to apply it every day. Because modern leadership often feels like standing in a storm with no map, no script, and people looking to you for direction.

Stoicism reminds me to:
- Focus on what I can control. The rest is noise.
- View obstacles as opportunities. Every disruption hides a lesson or a leverage point.
- Accept what can’t be changed. Resistance wastes energy; clarity fuels action.
- Reflect daily. Growth depends on perspective, not pace.
- Act with virtue. Integrity, courage, kindness, which after 2000 years, are still the most radical and effective tools of leadership.

Stoicism is not escapism. It's the exact opposite.  It is leadership from the inside out: calm, clear, and anchored in what endures.

This ancient wisdom is exactly what we need for our modern chaos.

Which of these 10 stoic principles stand out for you?

Strategy and Leadership Expert | LinkedIn Top Voice - #2 in the Netherlands | No-Nonsense Collaborator, Educator, Mentor, Author, and Entrepreneur | Creator of the Big 5 of Strategy

How learning agile are you? “The illiterate of the future are not those who can't read or write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn," -Alvin Toffler

 “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ – Mark Twain


Learning agility, is described as “knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do”, requires an open and receptive mindset

Those who demonstrate strong “learning agility” often excel at being able to study, analyse, and understand new situations and new business problems


Learning agility encompasses five factors:

1️⃣ Mental agility—embracing complexity, examining problems in unique ways, making fresh connections, and staying inquisitive

2️⃣ People agility—being open-minded toward others, enjoying interaction with diverse groups, bringing out the best in others

3️⃣ Change agility—willingness to lead transformation efforts, continuously exploring new options

4️⃣ Results agility—delivering results in tough situations, responding to challenge, inspiring others to achieve more than they thought possible

5️⃣ Self-awareness—being reflective, understanding strengths and weaknesses, seeking feedback and personal insight


✴️ The world of work has permanently changed, with volatility the new norm. Ways of thinking and working that previously led to success now result in stagnation, or worse, regression

✴️ Success requires leaders and individual contributors who are creative, flexible and open to innovative thinking



Acknowledgment: source: Korn Ferry


#learningagility #chro #successionmanagement #leadershipdevelopment

✴️ How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?  Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?

How do you Learn From Your Failures?  How do we make failure less threatening to the ego? Research offers a few suggestions:

1️⃣ Observe other people’s failures
In their paper, Eskreis-Winkler and Fishbach propose removing the ego from failure as much as possible by looking at other people’s failures first, before you take on a task yourself.

2️⃣ Get some distance
If negative emotions are getting in the way of your understanding, they also suggest trying self-distancing techniques.

3️⃣ Share your own failure story
People tend to hide their own failures, out of a sense of shame, but there are ways to turn failure into success by transforming it into a story of growth.

4️⃣Recognize your successes
There are other ways to shore up your own ego. Studies consistently find that experts are better able to tolerate failure in their fields, in part because they have a past history of accomplishment and future predicated on commitment.

5️⃣ Feel the disappointment
If all else fails, try just feeling sad over your mistakes and defeats. There is a great deal of research suggesting that sadness evolved as a response to failure and loss, and that it exists in order to encourage us to reflect on our experiences.

6️⃣ Focus on the long-term goal
Often, we need to ask ourselves: Will my failures lead to rewards down the line? 

7️⃣ Practice mindfulness
There is yet another reason failure often contains superior information: failure violates expectations,” Eskreis-Winkler and Fishbach write. Because people almost never intend to fail, failure can be surprising, which has the happy effect of waking up our brains—and a brain that is awake learns more than a brain that’s sleepwalking. When you feel surprised by failure, take that as a signal to be mindful and to sit with it rather than ignoring it.

8️⃣Reflect on the lessons you learned
Because failure requires more interpretation and thinking than success if we’re to learn from it

9️⃣Do less
Increasing our capacity to learn by engaging in fewer tasks that present opportunities for failure

🔟 Practice self-compassion
Many people believe that they should be hard on themselves in the wake of failure; after all, how else would you grow? 



***link to the source article below & other relevant resources 



Acknowledgment post based on article by JEREMY ADAM SMITH  who found  Research on how to overcome some emotional and cognitive barriers so that we learn from our defeats & infographic by Village: The Wholehearted School 



#leadership #leadershipdevelopment #learningexperience #selfcompassion 
#learningagility

Wow - Info-Tech Research Group wins Canada’s Most Innovative HR Team for 2025!  McLean & Company’s HR research and services are used by the Info-Tech Research Group HR team to fuel their innovation and progressive business focused approach to delivering value to the business!

If your HR team needs to adopt innovative HR practices consider partnering with the team at McLean & Company  and our team can power your innovation journey!

Congratulations Info-Tech Research Group on being recognized by HRD Canada as having one of Canada’s Most Innovative HR Teams for 2025.

This recognition reflects the effort the Info-Tech Research Group  HR team puts into making Info-Tech a place where people feel valued, supported, and able to do their best work. Innovation in HR inspires more than just new processes - it represents a commitment to listening, evolving, and making meaningful changes that positively impact our employees every day.



✴️Read more about the award: link in the comments box below



#chro #hr #humanresources #innovation

Info-Tech Research Group

Are you feeling overwhelmed to some degree? Are you delegating effectively?  It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, leaving us unsure of where to begin. 

In times of crises (as this is) Dwight Eisenhower, former US President and WW2 General focused on two criteria – importance and urgency. 

Covey popularized a matrix using these criteria which can be adapted for current conditions.  On one axis is importance, and on the other is urgency. 

When you need to prioritize your assignments, this matrix can help you decide when you can delegate, eliminate, or postpone the less essential in order to focus on what is mission critical.

Acknowledgment: posted derived from the article - Conquer Your To-Do List with This Simple Hack by Ellen Auster and Shannon Auster-Weiss


#management #leadershipdevelopment #leadership

If you had one process or practice you could embed into how a team functions - what would it be?

For me it might be the “Ladder of Inference”

One of Dr. Argyris’s most useful contributions was his theory of inference. The way we give meaning to things in our minds and how that influences our actions

To work your way down the ladder, use these guiding questions for each step:
1️⃣Actions:Why do I believe this to be the right action? What are some alternative options?

2️⃣Beliefs:What beliefs do I hold about this? What conclusions are they based on?

3️⃣Conclusions:Why did I conclude this? What are my assumptions there?

4️⃣Assumptions:Are my assumptions valid? Why am I assuming this? 

5️⃣Interpretations:Am I looking at this data objectively? What other meanings could they have?

6️⃣Selected data:What did I ignore or didn't pay attention to? Are there other sources of data I didn't consider?

Key take aways:
A)People can interpret the same set of ‘facts’ in different ways
B)Recognizing it as Expert Bias, Unconscious Bias or The Ladder of Inference is helpful as it can help prevent wrong conclusions and poor decisions
C)Once your bias is recognised, you need to take steps to ‘Climb Down The Ladder’



Acknowledgment:Chris Argyris Adam Amran & Untools 



#leadershipdevelopment #chro

So excited to be attending and speaking at the McLean & Company 2025 Signiture Conference! Here is the highlights reel from 2024!

youtube.com

McLean & Company HR Conference: Signature 2024

What Does It Means to Become a Skills-Based Organization?

✴️ What is it?

👉🏿A pure skills-based organization makes all talent decisions through the lens of skills and skills intelligence, which is the ability to identify, grow, and leverage skills at the individual and organizational level. 
👉🏿This operating model is inherently agile and can pivot to address change quickly and effectively.
👉🏿A pure skills-based organization currently exists as a theory, not as a reality. 
👉🏿The enticing promise of a skills-based organization masks the obstacles to this transformation.

✴️ Why does it matter?

👉🏿HR leaders are influential decision-makers regarding the feasibility, appropriateness, and scope of a skills-based transformation.
👉🏿Their strategic interpretation of the sensationalized promise of skills enables organizations to translate the noise into realistic opportunities for the organization.
👉🏿Moving along the skills-based spectrum is an intentional decision.
👉🏿In order to visualize the future, organizations need to uncover the work that needs to be done before beginning this transformation.

https://lnkd.in/gnS9r2sZ


Acknowledgment: McLean & Company 


#chro #hr #organizationdevelopment

📣 WE ARE HIRING! 📣 LinkedIn contacts, can you help and re-post this? 💥 

At Info-Tech Research Group and McLean & Company we are in a phase of hyper growth. We are hiring 450 roles globally at the firm as part of our international expansion!

We are looking for talented, driven, and exceptional candidates to join us.

Check out our careers pages for the latest open roles at Info-Tech Research Group and McLean & Company . Apply directly or share with someone who may be interested. Many of these roles are remote.

https://lnkd.in/g9bDDVC

https://lnkd.in/g6gw8yx

What are your top 5 go to podcasts right now?  I know mine and one of my top 5 is Change Signals with 📚Michael Bungay Stanier - I particularly enjoyed this episode with guest Loran Nordgren  

Here are three big questions that Loran Nordgren asks in the question for modern change mastery:

1️⃣Are you accidentally creating resistance by making your ideas sound too revolutionary?

2️⃣What if the anxieties you're avoiding are exactly what you need to address?

3️⃣Why does pushing harder on change often make things worse?

Loran Nordgren , a behavioural theory professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School, flips change management on its head. Instead of focusing on making ideas more appealing, he argues we should be removing psychological friction.

His "fuel versus friction" framework reveals why breakthrough changes often fail. The issue isn't that people don't see the value — it's that invisible barriers are holding good ideas back.
You'll discover why framing change as "evolution" works better than "revolution." 

Loran shares practical tactics like the South by Southwest email templates that doubled attendance without flashy marketing.

Most provocatively, he suggests that many of our change intuitions don't just fail — they actually amplify resistance. This conversation challenges how you think about urgency, buy-in, and the role of anxiety in organizational change.

If you're tired of change initiatives stalling despite obvious benefits, this episode offers a different lens for diagnosing what's really going wrong.


#changeleadership

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