To reach targets, drive a strategy with excellence and exceed shareholder demands, organisations need top talent. Gone are the days when employees could just follow process and be reasonably productive for their allotted eight hours – the competition is now too fierce. In the ever-changing and somewhat complex environment of a globalised economy, businesses are…
I’ve been a consultant to a couple of organisations where it’s hard to get to the truth: the facts about a situation, an opportunity or a problem that they are facing. They tell you what they require and their expected outcomes, but don’t really divulge the apparent complexities of the presenting issues – people problems,…
Focus on and persistence with the implementation of a strategy is often lost amongst other pressing issues – handling crises, problem-solving when things break down, protecting oneself in a sometimes politicised environment and dealing with the digital deluge. Frazzled managers and supervisors make sporadic attempts to get organised and to stay on top of things,…
For many decades, 3M’s executives have focused on a constant flow of terrific new products. In order to achieve this, in 1956, the company instituted a catalytic mechanism that is now widely known: design engineers and scientists are urged to spend 15% of their time experimenting and inventing in the area of their preference –…
I am frequently involved in strategic planning sessions with my clients. Based on a desirable future reality for the firm, company executives get together to plan the way ahead – develop a strategy to achieve their joint vision. Usually, enormous amounts of energy and time are expended in this necessary exercise, but many companies have…
I took my grandchildren to the park yesterday – a shaded playground, well-appointed with an appropriate slide, jungle-gym, see-saw, swings and the favourite merry-go-round or “round-about”. All of the activities represent one or another challenge for little ones – the swing (how high can I go?), the jungle-gym (how daring can I be?), the slide…
Organisations are not naturally fertile seedbeds for new learning, growth and doing things in better ways. Leaders who want to instil wide-spread change and improve their respective companies, in fact, need to recognise that they are attempting to change a seemingly unchangeable paradox: organisations thrive on routine and the status quo. Daniel Goleman, in his…
There are plenty out there that are bad, really bad – so-called “consultants” that wear the right suits, say the right things, claim experience beyond their years, but who ultimately give the profession a bad name. They parade their “skills” and expertise in front of the client with no real proven substance or testimony to…
I recall very clearly a team’s behaviour in a large manufacturing company, the team largely been made up of engineers and operational/production experts – whenever an idea was introduced to the larger gathering, individuals would attempt to pick holes in the idea unless the introducer of the idea was able to defend the principle and…
Dr Stephen R Covey of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People fame, at an address that I attended in the USA, related a story regarding exceptional client service in a hotel at which he was a guest. He had, through his secretary, made a reservation at the hotel chain that he usually used whilst travelling…
I have been doing some consulting work with a multi-national company recently, a company that has over two hundred brewing and bottling facilities all over the world. The company is well established, its oldest plants being almost two hundred years old. I imagine success partly can be attributed to the quality and desirability of its…
As organisations grow, they get fat. As they get fat, the ability to be flexible, grab new possibilities and make subtle shifts in focus or direction is impeded. The impediment causes frustration and results in everyone “working harder” in activities that are possibly not relevant to the prevailing market needs. The irrelevance in the market…
