Archive for the ‘Value Creation’ Category
Thursday, April 16th, 2009
During a week of holiday by the sea I’ve been reflecting on what it takes to get individuals and organisations out of their old habits and into a better place.
My brother is considering changing his job and has a great opportunity to do something really rewarding and stretching. He was at the stage where he risked convincing himself that the Status Quo was the better option until, over the course of a bottle of single malt, we fully explored the benefits of change.
Whatever change we might consider there are plenty of roadblocks and diversions. Whether it be giving up smoking, tackling underperforming teams, or transforming a whole organisation.
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Tags: Change Management
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Thursday, April 9th, 2009
I’ve been reading a book that has been around for some time but I hadn’t got round to reading.
“Maverick” by Ricardo Semler describes Semler’s journey from taking over his father’s business in 1980 to turning it into the successful business it is today. The journey has not been an easy one but his determination to run his business in a way that has been way ahead of its time is a refreshing read.
In the world of leadership development, the ideas on how he leads and manages his business are not new. What is unusual and refreshing is the commitment to and tangible evidence of success in a manufacturing business based in South America.
Tags: Maverick, Semler
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Monday, March 23rd, 2009
It’s that time of year again. Business plans and budgets are signed off, employee reviews are due and the annual objective-setting extravaganza is looming.
In the ideal world, this all happens seamlessly. As a manager, you have a clear line of sight to the organsation’s vision and goals; your manager discusses their objectives with you – along with the targets and measures in place; you have a pleasant, inspiring and meaningful conversation that crystallises for you exactly what you need to do, how you need to do it and exactly what you will have done at the end of the year to contribute to the success of the business. You can’t wait to go and have a similar conversation with your team to set them all on the way to success, leaving you to concentrate on your bit.
Tags: Objectives
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Thursday, March 19th, 2009
Leadership is usually defined with such statements as
* Creating and communicating a vision and strategic direction
* Aligning the organisational stakeholders
* Motivating and inspiring people to deliver
The principles of Lean thinking are
* Define value from the customer’s perspective
* Define the value stream activities for the waste free delivery of each product/service
* Align the value stream for continuous flow
* Manage demand at the pull of the customer
* Seek to continually perfect what you have created
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Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
I love these words – if you can be sure of anything you can be sure that whatever follows this phrase will be exactly that. I heard it used most recently at a senior team event I was facilitating when the ‘discussion’ between team members got a little heated. What I then found interesting was that, when the person who said it – and indeed followed it with a personal attack – was challenged on her behaviour, she shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘I was just being authentic’. I realised how easy it is, when under pressure, to misuse such a positive and powerful word – and deliver a devastating personal blow to the receiver.
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Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
Why Do Change programmes Fail ? – A subject close to my heart!
I have had the good fortune to work with some great companies and achieve some fantastic results with them using lean and Kaizen methods. The problem is that when I’ve returned some time later for the next round of improvements, I have found that changes and principles implimented have slipped, or even disappeared altogether. Why on earth after all that effort, soul searching, creativity and sweat have the benefits won been allowed to evapourate ?
It seems to me that big part of the problem is that senior and middle management have pretty busy days plus priorities and objectives that aren’t aligned to improvement programmes, which can be “added on” when crises hit.
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Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Much has been written about leadership; what it is, who should be doing it, how they should be doing it, what models work in which situations and how companies might apply those models for organisational effectiveness.
Much has been written about lean thinking; what it is, how it works, what the tools, techniques and concepts are and how different companies can translate those concepts into working models for their business.
Both leadership and lean thinking are seen as enablers for organisational success and yet…
Tags: Misc
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Monday, December 17th, 2007
The final 3Cs are compatibility, connectivity and creativity and in conjunction with capability make up 4 key elements to consider when recruiting, training and developing people to deliver value for and to your customers. At the front line of value are the sales and commercial teams who are accountable for the customer relationships and order taking part of your brand proposition. To differentiate your service offering they need to be more than transactional; they need to have an enterprise mindset.
COMPATIBILITY
Tags: Misc
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Thursday, December 13th, 2007
In part I revealed that the 4Cs are Capability, Compatibility, Connectivity And Creativity.
In part 3 today I will explore the first C of capability.
Capability
“Skills, knowledge and talents are distinct elements of a person’s performance. The distinction being, that skills and knowledge can be taught whereas talents cannot… Talents are recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behaviour that can be productively applied… They are a person’s mental filters.”
This has implications when recruiting and developing people for any part of your organisation where customer advocacy is required; and of course you could say that that should be everyone!
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Monday, November 26th, 2007
The strategies that enable a company to gain and maintain customers are only as effective as the people that implement them; so recruiting, training, developing and rewarding those people effectively, is crucial. A phrase commonly used is the war on talent; but should it be a battle?
What if a company’s talent strategy was such that the right people were attracted to rather than fought for?
At the frontline of any company is its salesforce. The salesforce of the future will need to reconsider the way it “sells”.
Posted in Leanership | No Comments »