Choosing the language for a training session in Seychelles
Most groups pick the language everyone can follow. That is the wrong test. A training session works when participants can argue in the language, not when they can follow it.
Blog
Notes on managing in Seychelles
Longer pieces on the management problems that come up repeatedly in Seychelles — written for practitioners, not for search engines.
DISC or the Enneagram? Choosing a self-awareness tool for a leadership team
Both models get used for the same purpose and they are not interchangeable. One describes behaviour you can observe in a meeting; the other describes motivation you cannot.
Four people, one conflict: the roles a team argument always recruits
Two colleagues are said to be in conflict and everyone else describes themselves as a bystander. In practice a lasting conflict needs four roles filled, and two belong to people who feel uninvolved.
Gen Z and baby boomers: the generational conflict is a rules conflict
The two ends of a team are described as having incompatible values. In the room, what they actually disagree about is four unwritten rules — and the disagreement is settled by writing them down.
Managing across nationalities in Seychelles: what actually differs, and what does not
A team mixing Seychellois staff with workers from a dozen countries does not need a country-by-country manual. Three dimensions explain most of the friction, and two of them are structural rather than cultural.
What actually motivates a team when you cannot change anyone's salary
Most managers here control far less of the pay than of the things that actually drive engagement. The trouble is that the standard advice on those levers assumes a team that shares expectations.
Motivating and keeping Gen Z: what works after you remove the perks
Young professionals are described as impossible to retain. They are not — they are expensive to retain badly. Five factors decide it, and four of them are the direct manager rather than the company.
Non-violent communication at work: what survives contact with a real office
Most people leave a session on the method convinced, and stop using it within a fortnight. The method is sound; the version taught for personal relationships does not transfer to an office as it stands.
Seven self-awareness tools compared: MBTI, Enneagram, DISC, Process Communication and three others
Seven instruments, sold for the same purpose, measuring different things with very different levels of evidence behind them. A comparison of what each is genuinely good for, and where each one should not be used.
What silence means in a Seychellois meeting room
A manager asks whether everyone agrees, nobody objects, the decision proceeds. Three weeks later it turns out half the room never agreed. This failure is common, expensive and fixable.
Four people who are certain they are working, and one team that disagrees
Every team has someone whose own account of their contribution does not match anyone else's. Four versions of it, and the diagnostic question that separates a visibility problem from a real one.