On this Tuesday we are reminded of an old song by Sting. He crafted the song ‘Russians’ at the height of the cold war in 1985 - four years before the Soviet Union collapsed under the autocratic weight of corruption and mismanagement. A recurring lyric in that song is “Believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children too”. It wa...
Read MoreLast week, Andrew wrote about the 3 stages of growth that a company experiences. While a company needs to adjust what it does as it grows, it also needs to change what it is, and this parallel change in being is a cultural journey. Your culture is created by the people within your company. Cultures often naturally drift and evolve over time, but...
Read MoreI am a great believer in the value of a company being in touch with its values. And I am greatly saddened when I see those values distilled into a mere list of words that are written on walls and published in websites. And you know some of the words I'm talking about: Communication, Respect, Integrity and Excellence are a few of the common ones...
Read MoreMy name is Graham Birkenhead and I am a procrastinator. I'm not alone, I'm not even in the minority. It is estimated that 15 to 25% of adults are chronically affected by procrastination, and up to 75% of adults procrastinate on a regular basis. Not only does it mean that you put off doing tasks and activities that need to be done, but the knowled...
Read MoreEach year I mentor a student in the Telfer School of Business at the University of Ottawa. This year the woman I am mentoring has been asked to participate in their Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. A truly noble cause. But… I am reminded of the great experiment underway at the moment to encourage the vaccine hesitant to rethink their opp...
Read MoreThe reason I bring this up is because of a more recent interaction with Bell. My internet stopped working and so I went online to try and resolve it… The first items on their phone tree are all about buying a new phone, a new TV service, faster internet etc… Eventually you get down to repairs and you again click through a long tree only to be put o...
Read MoreWhen I was a child, I had a VERY active imagination (I guess like a lot, if not most children). I had limited exposure to the world, yet that didn't stop me. Every new experience provided opportunities to ask more questions, everything I saw on television (even in black and white) or heard on the radio, or conversation overheard, gave me more inp...
Read MoreUnemployment figures continue to improve; we have a little way to go before we are back to pre-pandemic levels, but we are moving in the right direction. Currently, unemployment in Canada is 7.5% (1.5m) and in the US it is 5.4% (10m). These figures will include people who are ‘looking’ for work; they won’t include the people who could work but f...
Read MoreWhenever the name Thomas Edison is mentioned, people often think about ‘the man that invented the light-bulb’, and most are aware of the many variations of his famous quote about trying to make the lightbulb work: “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work”.
Read MoreSuccess in business is a rare thing, in fact 70% of businesses fail within their first 10 years. And that number holds true for all types of business. Of those that don’t fail, only a few really soar. Why am I saying this? Simply to suggest that you be careful when you think about emulating your peers or you may well be joining a pack of lemmings h...
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