ConceptsNest

   Close your eyes and imagine yourself standing in front of a towering wall with small, colourful pegs scattered along the structure. Around your waist is a snug harness, and you begin to scale the wall, one step at a time, climbing higher and higher. Every move you make is methodical, forcing you to think with your body as much as your brain. There are mental health benefits of rock climbing that exceed the physical ones, and we don’t necessarily have to be a master of the sport to reap them. Leadership can be learned anywhere. Reflecting back on rock-climbing sessions, we realized how much this experience can be a metaphor for leadership experiences. Rock climbing offers many opportunities for personal and professional development.   1. Collaboration and Differing Perspectives: . . . -> Climbing is solitary, yet highly collaborative in nature. To climb safely, you must have someone to belay and/or spot you, meaning you are always part of a team. Active encouragement and coa

  A Story: In the 1920s, a German professor named Eugen Herrigel moved to Japan to teach philosophy at a university in a city called Sendai, near Tokyo. To deepen his understanding of Japanese culture, Herrigel began training in Kyudo, the Japanese martial art of archery. He was taught by a legendary archer named Awa Kenzo. Kenzo was convinced that beginners should master the fundamentals of archery before attempting to shoot at a real target, and he took this method to the extreme. For the first four years of his training, Herrigel was only allowed to shoot at a roll of straw just seven feet away. When Herrigel complained of the incredibly slow pace, his teacher replied: When he was finally permitted to shoot at more distant targets, Herrigel’s performance was dismal. The arrows flew off course and he became more discouraged with each wayward shot . During a particularly humbling session, Herrigel stated that his problem must be poor aim. Kenzo, however, looked at his student and re

  The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the "vital few"). Other names for this principle are the  80/20 rule , the  law of the vital few ,  or the  principle of factor sparsity . Management consultant Joseph Juran developed the concept in the context of quality control and improvement, naming it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noted the 80/20 connection while at the University of Lausanne in 1896. In his first work, Cours d'économie politique, Pareto showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The Pareto principle is only tangentially related to Pareto efficiency. More generally, the Pareto Principle is the observation (not law) that most things in life are not distributed evenly . It can mean all of the following things: The Uneven Distribution What does it mean when we say that things aren’t distributed evenly? The key point is that each unit of wor

As our career progresses, we may find we do fewer technical tasks and spend more time guiding a team or planning strategy . While that's often a given today, in the 19th century most companies promoted the best technicians. But Henri Fayol recognized that the skills that made them good at their jobs did not necessarily make them good managers . Who Was Henri Fayol? Fayol's  14 Principles of Management  identified the skills that were needed to manage well. While inspiring much of today's management theory, they offer tips that we can still implement in our lives and organizations. Fayol also created a list of the five Primary   Functions of Management , which go hand in hand with the Principles. What Is Administrative Theory? Fayol called managerial skills "administrative functions." In his 1916 book, "Administration Industrielle et Générale," he shared his experiences of managing a workforce. Fayol’s book – and his 14 Principles of Management –