In the early 1980’s, plans were well underway within the Boeing “family” to build the Boeing 777. When they began to consider building the largest and most complex plane ever designed, Boeing developed a new set of values, which led to a specific set of long-range goals. The same were cascaded into a large set…
Alinda Nortje, colleague and Executive Chairperson of Free To Grow, during a presentation, related her experiences of facilitating a workshop for UNICEF in a country in the Middle East – as facilitator, there is always a steep learning curve when one gets to a new context. Upon landing, the facilitator immediately goes into learning mode…
Periodically, as managers, we are faced with employee non-conformance operationally (for example: not observing safety rules, missing deadlines, negligence, inaccuracies, etc.) or in terms of behaviour (for example: arriving late repetitively, not behaving according to the company values, gossiping, treating a client with indifference, etc.). These performance issues need to be addressed, even if difficult…
Stress is part of all of our lives. In fact, a little stress is good for one. A violin string in an un-stretched state can’t produce a note. Tightening it to an optimal tautness, however, the string produces the quality tone that it was designed for in the hands of a violinist. Likewise, some stress…
Colin Hall, friend and former colleague, was born during the Second World War into a reasonably affluent white South African family. His schooling during those Apartheid years meant that he got the best education, but with it, also heavy doses of superiority and competition. He soon discovered that life was his for the grasping and…
Living life meaningfully in all the stages of life is perhaps the quest of many. People crave for significance and desperately want to leave an impact – something worthwhile for which you will be remembered. Being the best student, being the best mom or dad, being professional and growing in your career, being a grandparent…
In the early 1990’s, Frank C Nahser, Inc., an advertising company based in Chicago, did a 450 page study entitled “What’s Really Going On?” – the study was designed to provide business with a new method of determining what’s really going on in the face of information overload. Recognising the need for and value of…
One of my worst recollections of corporate life was the amount of meetings I had to attend – not because they were not necessary or unimportant, but because they were either not focused and boring, or because a few people dominated what was supposed to be a discussion and deliberation. Non-participation in processes (including meetings)…
The Year 2000 Problem (or Y2K) was a crisis for both digital (computer-related) and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits. This practice became problematic with logical errors possibly arising upon roll-over from x99 to x00, causing date-related processes to operate incorrectly for…
Brand reputation and corresponding trust are critical for the ongoing growth and sustainable development of a company. Ram Charan, author of What the CEO wants you to know, noted: “Without customer’s trust, the rest doesn’t matter”. In fact, Hank Paulson, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, emphasised the need for growing trust in his statement: “Our…
In the Arthurian legends, Sir Perceval, one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, was raised by a mother who taught him the importance of asking questions. The instruction was proved invaluable during his youth when he escaped from a group of knights by asking questions rather than giving answers. By the time he…
When pressed for time, particularly when you are rushing somewhere in your car to make an appointment, clarity of thought sometimes goes out the window. You encounter an orange light and do what most people do – you speed up. Orange lights have become the international symbol for “go faster”! They seem to have lost…
