Winning strategies to boost business performance

Under pressure, integrity is the first thing to go overboard

2009-11-11T20:19:00.001+11:00

How will your staff hold up under pressure? And how will you feel when you find out? In times of crisis, such as the global financial crisis, organisations face the challenge of trying to...

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Insane Business Practices - 1

2009-10-15T18:00:00.002+11:00

Sometimes my work involves telling organisations the truth about their business, people, processes and systems in a way that has to be made extremely blunt, in order to cut through layers of red...

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Management Consultants - Help or Hazard?

2009-10-10T03:03:00.004+11:00

Just read a wonderful article by Jack Trout on the management consulting profession. If you have the time to read it all, please do. Otherwise, fast forward to the foot of his article to the...

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The high cost of a cheap hire

2009-10-10T01:44:00.004+11:00

A client recently confided that while the GFC had created some problems, they were still growing, and badly needed to fill two new key positions. Catch was, they hadn't budgeted for a Main St...

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"We don't often look at the website..."

2009-04-17T17:32:00.005+10:00

Amid the gloom out there many companies are thriving because they have a clear value proposition, they are consistently communicating targeted offers to their customers, and they have their business...

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Don't read this...

2008-11-25T01:04:00.005+11:00

In fact, stop taking any notice of anything you read in the newspapers, or see on TV, or hear on the radio. Because 99% of it is damaging your brain. That's right - all those negative messages are...

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At last. Tourism Australia focuses on the customer value proposition

2008-10-09T12:55:00.004+11:00

After a disastrous international response to the "Where the bl**dy hell are you?" campaign, Tourism Australia has gone back to basics - with some very expensive big guns - to focus on the real value...

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Succession Planning - Football club shows how it's done

2008-10-01T16:21:00.003+10:00

The Brisbane Lions did not waste any time when coach Leigh Matthews resigned in September 2008. Chairman Tony Kelly knew exactly who he wanted, and where to get hold of him. Within hours, he was on...

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Top 20 Brands in Australia - Survey

2008-09-15T15:30:00.003+10:00

According to a recent survey by brand consultancy Belong, and publicised through the major newspapers, the following is what they are trying to tell us (I suspect, tongue in cheek) is a list of the...

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Starbucks closures no surprise

2008-08-01T13:41:00.002+10:00

Starbucks closing stores in the US and Australia doesn't surprise me at all. They lost touch with their consumers after the IPO when pleasing Wall Street became a more important strategic imperative...

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It's a blank page. Want to know how the story ends?

2008-01-02T16:55:00.000+11:00

2008. It's only just begun. But if you want to know how it will end, you need to know what sort of an ending you are looking for. Objective setting. Something that is a really good idea this time...

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Keep it simple when it's time to go

2007-12-13T11:03:00.000+11:00

It's a fact of life that e-marketers need to be terribly careful about how they relate to their audience. Some marketers arrogantly act as if they own the relationship. They don't. The customer...

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"Our people are our greatest asset"

2007-11-09T08:26:00.000+11:00

Of course they are. They must be. Because every CEO and business owner says so. But just like any asset class, people have to be carefully selected, reviewed, and nurtured. Just as fund managers...

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Why Balanced Scorecard doesn't work*

2007-10-11T13:03:00.000+10:00

*...for some organisations. In his excellent blog "the unfulfilled Promise of the Balanced Scorecard" well-known performance management expert Gary Cokins suggests some of the reasons why Balanced...

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And this is where the execution happens...

2007-10-02T09:23:00.001+10:00

At a recent seminar on Corporate Strategy Execution with a group of middle and senior management executives, many drawn from the public service, I had just explained in detail the strategic planning...

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Walk before you run

2007-09-28T12:00:00.000+10:00

I was recently approached by a potential start-up client, They had a good business concept with certain unique aspects, they had test-marketed for a few months, and they had got some great results -...

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How green was my inbox

2007-08-17T17:27:00.000+10:00

I was reading a blog by a very accomplished US web designer Jennifer Poyer about working from home, prioritising project items, juggling a lot of different tasks on one screen and balancing work and...

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Get the basics right, first

2007-08-14T21:21:00.000+10:00

In his blog yesterday Guy Kawasaki suggested one should never hire a person who claims to know all the management tools shown on the 'MBA on a page'. Fair enough. Anyone who claims to know all...

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Get focused on your metrics (or get lost!)

2007-08-12T02:19:00.000+10:00

Remember that one-day workshop I spoke of in last Friday's blog? As I wind up a workshop that has engaged the participants with some very powerful strategic business planning and execution concepts...

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If you want to get ahead, get a strategy map

2007-08-10T10:22:00.000+10:00

Over 50 people signed up for a one-day pre-conference workshop I gave a on Balanced Scorecard to link IT strategy to corporate strategy at Terrapinn's Help Desk 2007 Conference in Sydney in June,...

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Great teams start with great recruitment

2007-08-07T23:48:00.000+10:00

Have you ever stopped to wonder why some people you hire fit in really well with the rest of their team? While others perpetually seem to have some kind of a problem that affects their performance,...

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Your boss is indecisive, or maybe not

2007-08-07T10:54:00.000+10:00

According to a recent News.com.au article, nearly half of British employees think their bosses are poor decision makers according to a new poll conducted in June 2007 by research firm YouGov. Of the...

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