Archive
to plan or not to plan
“We need a plan” is a fairly obvious statement before you start any endeavour and with a decent plan in place there is little excuse for not succeeding; “I love it when a plan comes together” I think Hannibal Smith used to say in each A Team episode, but what about when a plan goes off the rails, or if you don’t have a plan? Read more…
holiday humour, with a Facilities Manager’s blues
This week’s holiday humour comes in the form of a song. Bob Dylan’s Stuck Inside of Mobile (with the Memphis blues again) comes from the 1966 album Blonde on Blonde and has long been a favourite. I used to play it in the car a lot on long trips; the lines “and here I sit so patiently, waiting to find out what price, you to pay to get out of, going through all these things twice” had a lot of meaning after those boring all day meetings and I would sometimes make up topical verses to sing along to. Read more…
instant communication does not imply good communication
Communication has been on my mind this week and I have been reflecting on the way that it has changed so much in the last twenty years or so. The vehicle for that change has been technology and it has affected verbal and written communication by giving us an opportunity to interact in different ways, the most striking of which, perhaps, is in the immediacy with which we can reach others. Read more…
the importance of understanding money
I wrote in one of my books about probably the best piece of business advice that I ever had came not in a work context, but from the father of a young lady who I was about to take out on a date. Read more…
Hillary, Rodney and Neville; an eternal triangle? more holiday humour from the #MondayMusings column
RADIO SCRIPT
(Dialogue: All with clipped tones, very stiff upper lip British middle class. An overacted Brief Encounter style)
(Background: Faint sounds of an office with occasional telephones ringing and bursts of typewriter noise)
(A door opens) Read more…
leadership is also about creating the right space
Since I got back from my recent intercontinental travels I have been writing a lot about how things used to be for certain aspects of the places I have been to are in sharp contrast to the way things are here in the UK in 2014. Read more…
holiday humour for Easter in the dime novel style
The silence stretched between them and her patience was near to snapping; why could he not just say something? It had been almost three hours now since she had unleashed a torrent of venom in his direction and it had taken most of that time before she began to accept that she had been wrong to react in the way that she had. Hell, he was just a man and she had known enough of them to know what to expect when you criticised them; sulking and silence. Read more…
the missing piece of the jigsaw
Last week I had a bit of a go at the appraisal system and suggested that we all scrapped it; have you done that yet? You really should consider it, regardless of what your HR colleagues may say. Read more…
the cure for poor annual appraisals
Ever had a bad job appraisal? Do you dread that time of the year? Do you worry about having to appraise your team? If the answer to any of these questions is yes then read on, for the cure Is here; you need never to have, or give, a bad appraisal again. Read more…
pendulum swings; why business cycles happen
There are natural cycles in business just as there are in nature. Watching any industry evolve will show these progressions and good purchasing people can read them to understand how upcoming deals are likely to pan out. Read more…
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the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke 