Sun Tzu said many things concerning the art of war that are just as applicable to the art of business. For example, "In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” There are many aspects to the world today that we could describe as chaos, and in each there will be opportunity for those that care to
Read MoreI taught skiing, part time, for over 40 years. And during that time, I learned so much about skiing, teaching, and people. I also learned a great deal about staying warm; standing around for hours on end in windy -25C weather coaching downhill racers is not for the faint of
Read MoreAlmost every CEO I meet complains that finding staff is hard. And those that they can attract don’t perform well and don’t stay. Every leader understands how important great employees are to the success of their team, but many are doing it backwards. Companies spend huge amounts of money on websites, lead generation, sales funnels, pipeline...
Read MoreThose elephants just sneak into the room with you, hide in plain sight whilst tucked away in corners, and cause havoc with your company’s performance. If only we could do something about that. Humans have an amazing ability to see and notice things that are different or changing, but we are generally less good at seeing things that don't change....
Read MoreI have worked with senior managers and executive teams who wouldn't recognise strategy if it bit them on the proverbial; conversely, I have worked with great strategic thinkers in the most unexpected places with much less responsibility. The ability to think strategically has nothing to do with your role or seniority, although one hopes that execu...
Read MoreWe often have a strategy for this and a strategy for that - and we have strategic plans etc. Having quantized approaches to achieving goals can work well, especially when you know where you are and you well understand the nature of the system around you. However, when we are running businesses, with bigger, fuzzier and further out goals and much m...
Read MoreThe talk about ‘recession’ has many owners rattled. Most of you reading this own small or medium sized businesses and by corollary have a small share of the markets you serve. If the overall market you serve shrinks by 1% it will have very little effect on your ability to expand. Your growth, or lack of it can’t be attributed to the overall economy...
Read MoreOne of our clients is expanding quite quickly and hiring people. They are in the business of creating complex and highly sensitive sensors to measure everything that’s going on with our ocean waters. Naturally they’re looking to hire people who are interested and hopefully passionate about the same sorts of things. So what do they do if they want t...
Read MoreA recent UK employee study paints a rather troubling picture of company life. It found that: The study went on to identify that roughly half the people would leave a negative on-line review about their company, and that nearly 50% wouldn't even apply to a company that had negative online reviews. At a time when so many companies are struggling to...
Read MoreWe intuitively know the correlation between company culture and company success (including success in attracting and retaining great people). Research shows that companies who’s staff describe their culture as good or excellent seem to be thriving in all respects. We also know how to build an outstanding culture:
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