About
Welcome to my website!
I am a Leadership Consultant, Mentor, Human Rights Supporter, Award-winning Author, Speaker and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
I work with Leaders and Managers to become more effective leaders.
Born and raised in Nigeria, I relocated to Australia in 1994.
My approach is collaborative and multi-disciplinary, with influence from the latest findings in Lateral Thinking, Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience, Health and Wellbeing.
My approach is summed up by the late Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, that we lead people and manage things.
Access my online leadership development courses here.
Central to my Executive Coaching ethos are the principles summed up in these two quotes by Dale Carnegie, “when dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity” and “the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.”
As a result, I take proper care by working with you to identify your desired outcomes, what success looks like, and how these will be measured. And then we go to work achieving success for you!
As Harry S. Truman said, “not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
For the keen readers out there, here are some of my favourite books and material that have inspired and influenced me. Feel free to share yours with me at dayo(at)anode(dot)com(dot)au:
1. Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr Maxwell Maltz. An excellent insight on how to understand people (and yourself) better.
2. This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin. The power and effect of music on how our brains function.
3. Eat Move Sleep by Tom Rath. A good one to find out more about sleep. You can also visit Rath’s site tomrath.org or eatmovesleep.org for a free assessment to guide you on how to have more energy and be more productive.
4. The Daily Drucker. Summarised into 366 useful daily tips. Peter F. Drucker's book about focusing on getting the right things done, rather than getting things done right.
5. Goodreads on Management A handy collection of quotes on management.
6. Forbes on Leadership A handy collection of quotes on leadership.
7. Shawn Stevenson’s book, Sleep Smarter: 21 Proven Tips To Sleep Your Way To A Better Body, Better Health And Bigger Success
8. How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Here is a bonus quote from the book, “Research done a few years ago under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching uncovered a most important and significant fact – a fact later confirmed by additional studies made at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. These investigations revealed that even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15 percent of one’s financial success is due to one’s technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering – to personality and the ability to lead people.” Carnegie’s own findings while dealing with over 1500 engineers also confirmed this assertion. I have found this assertion to be true, in my experience with leadership development.
9. Advanced Project Management by Alan D Orr. A good book on the mechanics of managing large, complex projects. You are bound to find some useful material in the book, no matter how new, or experienced, you are in Project Leadership and Management.
10. Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. The authors are the founders of 37Signals, the company that brought us Basecamp and Ruby on Rails: a hugely successful project management cloud app, and a very popular software application framework respectively. Their book, released in 2010, gives a very healthy, practical, often tongue-in-cheek, alternative approach to ‘how we’ve always worked.’ If you are after a refreshing look at how organisations have always worked then check out their book. Their take on meetings is that, if not well-managed, they could end up costing a lot of human-hours. Further, meetings that have no clear goal tend to drag on to fill the scheduled duration. If you’ve achieved the goal of a 30 minute meeting in 10 minutes, then end the meeting. How often have you heard “a quick meeting is a good meeting”? Is this a mantra that you subscribe to? If you have never ended a meeting early, when the goal has been met, try it next time and see what effect it has on your team and yourself.
11. Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management by Scott Berkun is a collection of essays based on his experience. Berkun worked for nine years at Microsoft as Program Manager for Internet Explorer and Lead Program Manager for Windows and MSN. More recently, he spent a couple of years at WordPress.com.
12. Real Leaders Don’t Do PowerPoint: How To Sell Yourself And Your Ideas by Christopher Witt. Released in 2009 by Christopher Witt, a speech consultant and executive training coach. Dr Witt’s advice for leaders on how to influence may trigger some similar memories for you, “leaders make their audiences see what they see. They actively shape the way people think and feel about critical issues. Once leaders make their vision concrete and specific, they can then influence their listeners to do what’s needed to bring that dream to fruition.”
13. The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. Recommended to me by my sister-in-law. This is a great book for women AND men, regarding self-assurance and confidence.
14. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. A great look at how we make decisions and judgements, process risk, and how we see ourselves. A must-read!
