where will we work in the future?
Is the office dead? No, not that TV show, the real place that many of us have worked in over the years. Read more…
unclutter your organisation
I wrote last week about supporting the front line, and the importance of having a focus on what you have to do to deliver what your customers need. As regular readers will know I have a strong dislike of process for the sake of it and a belief in concentrating on what you need to do and not allowing yourself to be distracted by nice to have fancies. Read more…
supporting the front line doesn’t mean holding it up
I have been very lucky over the years in that I have been able to be part of some massive changes in the businesses for whom I have worked, from small parts in the early years through to influence and then responsibility. These days my role is usually one of influence because that is what mentors and consultants do (I can’t recall who said it, but I love the line about a consultant being like a castrated bull; he can only advise), but I do love the opportunity to get back into the trenches and do something. Read more…
put your own people first and let them handle the customer
I spend a lot of my life moving about, and have done since the early 80s. As a compulsive observer; it’s one of the ways that I have earned a living, I’m struck by how people behave towards each other. Read more…
should consultants be fussy about who they work for?
It is 2012 AD as far as earth years are concerned, but on the planet Skaro the Dalek council is in session. Before them they have a quivering PR team of humans whose latest slide show presentation of demographics, media hits and market penetration media management speak has failed to impress. Read more…
asset management; a hard lesson
Asset management is very much at the forefront of my thinking at the moment, and in a very personal sense. It was about 4 weeks ago that I took a long look in the mirror and decided that I needed to apply some first principles to my main asset; myself. Read more…
you have what you’ve got: use it well and more will come
This wasn’t written with the financial crisis in mind, but, in proof reading it, it could well have been. My thoughts were more on developing teams and, because teams are made up of them, individuals.
If you lived in that ideal world of fluffy bunnies and blue skies then you could always pick your own team. Fortunately, at least for me, we don’t live there. It wouldn’ be much fun anyway as there would be no challenges, and so back here in the real world we will, as leaders, have to make something of what we have. Read more…
how hard is it to deliver decent customer service?
Back to customer service this week and a trio of unrelated incidents that have got me thinking about this again. Read more…
learning from crisis management
Last month our fridge-freezer had a glitch just as we hit that warm spell. The fridge wasn’t cool enough and the freezer stopped freezing. The auto-defrost had iced up and we had to write off some of the contents, but I found a cure and we got it working again, and over the weeks since some weekly maintenance had kept it working well. Read more…
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the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke 