How to help your staff help you
Why is training, and even lifelong learning, important? Well, what our grandfathers learnt was pretty much the same as what their grandfathers learnt. Life was slow, the pace of change was slow, technology didn’t change. Like it or not (many of us don’t), but life ain’t like that now, as can be seen from the […]
Company values – what is their importance?
In a number of previous blogs, we have looked at various companies and their purpose, mission and vision several different times and from different angles. With these in place, an associated task is to think about defining your company values. Values statements serve as a framework to guide the daily actions and decisions; they represent […]
Drive the learning
Drive the Learning: The Final Step in Sustainable Improvement In the previous four blogs, we have explored the foundational elements of effective organisational transformation: Articulate intent, Know the flow, Master the measures, and Engage the people. Each step builds upon the last, creating a coherent system of improvement rooted in clarity, systems thinking, and human […]
Know the flow – Core Activity Map
In the last blog, we looked at articulating intent and defining your organisational purpose, which defines the value that is delivered to your clients. We are now going to look into the processes and practises that are instrumental to the delivery of your purpose. So, if we want to build a robust management system that […]
Articulate intent
As an owner manager there is a key question you might want to consider contemplating: What is your (company) purpose? I don’t mean to make a profit – that’s a result. When we think of an organisation’s purpose, we are thinking about the job you do for your clients and customers that they can’t do […]
5 Steps to Business Planning
Well, it’s that time of year again, the Christmas songs are out and I’m already out of Whamageddon, having heard that damn song “Last Christmas” on the very first day of December! All far too early for me! In the words of another famous singer, Mr Lennon, “Another year over and what have we done?” […]
SWOT analysis
The SWOT analysis is probably the archetypal marketing or business planning tool, the origins for which seem have been lost in the mists of time. Some credit an American business thinker, a guy called Albert Humphrey, who worked at the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) for its invention. However, whilst he developed other tools, […]
Porter analysis
When to use it Porter’s Five Forces Model is another well-known, top-level, battle-hardened, often deployed tool for analysing the external competitive environment a business faces, but whereas PESTEL works at the macro-environmental level (looking at the issues beyond the control of the company), Porter works at a level below that, where, very significantly, given the […]
PESTEL Analysis
PESTEL analysis is probably one of the most well-known, top-level, battle-hardened and frequently deployed business planning tools – a great tool! PESTEL being an acronym for Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological, Environmental and Legislation. When we first came across the tool (some 30 years ago) it was simply PEST analysis: the EL has been added along […]
Taming complexity, problem solving and introducing Ishikawa
If you have a serious problem, it’s critical to explore everything that might cause it, before you start thinking about solutions. Ishikawa, or cause-effect analysis, is a brilliant tool for doing just this. Cause and effect Most of us assume that the relationship between cause and effect is both simple and direct as in the […]