What Does it Mean to be Smart?

What it means to be smart is the willingness to learn; to look for alternatives and select the best possible option; then demonstrate the competencies required to execute the plan. Our society adequately develops the required technical and intellectual skills, but we’ve missed the mark on developing essential skills that help people manage complexity.

New Year's Sales & Marketing Resolutions

It's a great time to dust off your playbook and think about what your strategic plans are in sales and marketing for the coming year. A good way to start is to start by taking your management team through a series of new year's resolutions.

How to Know What You Know (3)

...In many situations we act without even knowing why we act the way we do...This is no longer desirable when your organization is changing too often...Knowledge Management is (amongst other aspects) about making the “private” knowledge “publicly” available...So that you can bridge the Knowledge Gap...But your organization was not used to this. Different teams applied different principles...And now what? How to address this new set of principles so that knowledge management is adopted in the primary process?

A Personal Reminiscence Of a Gradual Change

The second industrial revolution: reinventing your business on the Web, is a book that I received from (former) professor of MIT John Donovan when I attended his conference in Paris in 1999 about the same topic. I recently re-opened the book accidentally and found an interesting part about change management...

Change Management And Participation

Related to the topic of problem-or-solution-oriented change is the topic of participation. But this issue of participation is more delicate than the previous one. This is about the amount of space for negotiation around the proposition. The proposition however is something that also needs time to ripe; or has there already been prepared one? Is the path to which the developments will lead already entered or is your organization gathered at a square and considering a next move: in any of the directions that are accessible from the square?

How Can You Create a Healthy Healthcare Organization? Treat It Like a Patient!

Many healthcare organizations primarily focus on the clinical side and often ignore the quality of the rest of the organization. Your site is like a human body. Maintaining and improving the health of an organization is much like maintaining the health of a human body--focus on the whole and its parts.

Developing World Class Enterprise Agility: How to Manage Radical Transformation

Becoming an agile world class company requires overcoming organizational inertia. Often overlooked are outdated cultures, ineffective management skills, bureaucratic red tape, and a reward system that doesn't fit. How do you get your arms around this? The integrated change model provides a comprehensive methodology for large scale change and implementation of time-based strategy.

Franchise Outlet Training and New Hires

Often in franchising, franchise outlets will have turnover of key personnel. They may seek the services of the franchisor to train the new employee. In some cases franchise or training of managers may actually be required to be done by the franchise himself.

Buy-In: What Is It? And Why Is It Important?

Buy-in is sought when an adjustment – often for logical, necessary, or profitable reasons - is required within the status quo. It can be a mission statement change, or a new software solution, a new team member, or a new initiative, for example. While the impetus for the change may differ, plans for implementation seem to be predicated on the basic belief that buy-in can be achieved, and a new set of actions agreed upon and carried out, once a logical, congruent case is made for the requested change.

How to Make 5S Work - Part 1

As most employees actually want 5S, you need to involve them in the work. If you do this right you will not just get a better running operation, but also motivated employees eager to continue with the change process.

Do You Need a War Room? Life in the Command Center

The War Room or Command Center has its origin in military and technology environments. But businesses, other governmental and non-profit organizations have all adapted the command center concept. This article outlines the key elements of an effective command center regardless of the type of organization or intended purpose.

Managing Change: Principles for Success

Despite the wealth of books written on the subject of change management, many change initiatives still go off the rails. A rule based guidebook approach is no longer enough to ensure success in today’s complex environment. By living out certain key change principles, you and your team will be able to fill in the gaps and provide a much needed human dimension to organizational change. Find out what core principles you need to adopt and model for your change program to make a positive impact in your organization.

Going For Growth: Debt, Rate-of-Return and Risk

All businesses make investments in both plant and equipment, and also in their employees. Depending on the type of enterprise, some businesses will have more invested capital than others. No matter the type of business, the primary question remains the same. The question is - what is the purpose (or goal) of any business investment? The answer - the purpose of any investment is to increase the net worth of that investment. The question then becomes--how to finance it?

Turnarounds: From the Oval Office to the Corner Office

The headlines recently have focused on how the replacement of President George W. Bush’s chief of staff may serve to salvage the President’s second term. His new chief of staff has set an agenda, made announcements and started lopping off heads, so to speak, in a very public way. This is not too different from what has happened at corporations during turnarounds. Whether looking at financial institutions, industrial companies, airlines, consumer goods companies or telecommunications giants, the visible dynamics are they same.