Strategic and Change Management

Change Management or Growth Management - What's Best

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:26:00 +0000

After reading this great article by Kevin McCarthy about Why Does Change Management Fail? I got to think about the best cases I have worked on.

They certainly were not the 'down-sizing' scenarios, but they were the pushing into new markets, expansion, and 'up-sizing'. We got the greatest buzz from these, the client got the greatest satisfaction and the employees were 'on-board from the outset.

Kevin is right; change is (mostly) negative. Growth on the other-hand only leads in one direction, upwards.

So the 'On Purpose' business as Kevin has coined will always be the winner. What about your growth management needs?

Power at the socket may be clean but is it green?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:10:00 +0000

Everybody needs it, most people take it for granted; but.
Where does our power come from, what is ‘energy’, how and why has it become so expensive over the last few years?

First we have to understand the current way power is generated and distributed in most of the developed economies (and to a certain extent how those players are telling the emerging economies how to set up their power utilities).

The first concept is about electricity generation; Centralised Electricity and De-Centralised Electricity?

Centralised Power is characterised by large power stations using Coal, Oil, Gas, Hydro or even Nuclear

• Because they are sited away from population centres they cannot fully utilise “waste” heat from the generation process. Unfortunately this represents around 60% of the energy released on combustion in a Coal, Oil or Gas fired Station for example.
• The other issue is that because they are remote we need a substantial grid network to take the power to the users. This grid will lose power the further electricity has to travel to you the user.
• A further issue is that large projects like the building of big power stations suffer from a condition called the “MegaProject Paradox”. This asserts that ‘mega-projects’ invariably run over budget and over projected time. Furthermore they often do not deliver the promised benefits.

US President Barrack Obama thinks that Nuclear is OK, but building big centralised Nuclear has just got a lot more expensive thanks to 9/11. From the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regarding the Westinghouse Electric Company's design;
• "The shield building is the outer housing that covers both the plant's core and an inner containment shell. The shield not only has to protect the reactor from severe weather such as earthquakes and hurricanes but also has to support a tank of roughly 2700 tonnes of water used to cool the reactor in the case of an emergency.
• The NRC certified a prior version of the reactor in January 2006 that had a shield made of cement reinforced with steel bars running through it. After the design was approved, however, the NRC added an additional requirement for the shield building to withstand the impact of an airplane crash."
So to make the shield building airplane proof has to be a big cost increase. But cost over-runs are horrific, especially with Nuclear;

• In 2009, NRG purchased Houston-based Reliant Retail Energy, which for years bought nuclear-generated power from the South Texas Project (formerly the South Texas Nuclear Project). Construction cost estimates for two additional reactors in Bay City now exceed $18 billion, three times NRG's original projections. The completion of the first two STNP reactors ran six times over budget, were eight years late coming online and were plagued with mismanagement, construction problems and lawsuits. If NRG completes the new South Texas Project reactors, Houston ratepayers will absorb a significant part of similarly skyrocketing costs".

• "NRG and CPS Energy, San Antonio's city-owned utility, partners in the proposed expansion, are fighting each other in court. When ratepayers in San Antonio learned of a $4 billion nuclear price increase, they rebelled. CPS had hidden the higher cost, in essence lying to the San Antonio City Council and the public for half a year. Facing serious backlash, CPS now seeks to clarify terms for pulling out of the project and wants $32 billion from project partners".

• In South Africa Eskom (the National Power Utility) is continuing with a massive over $15 billion coal fired power station that is currently late and over budget. As it’s coal it will add over 20 million tons per annum of CO2, plus the running costs of burning that coal, and at only 30% fuel efficiency.

All in all large scale centralised power plant building plus the rising costs of burning the fuel to make the electricity has been the biggest contributors to rapidly increasing fuel costs for all users.

Strangely it is this rapidly increasing cost of electricity that is driving the expansion of renewable energy provision and in energy saving technologies. Users of power are now in a much better position to generate their own energy in order to reduce their dependence on the large scale utility providers.
This brings us to Distributed Power or Embedded Power plus Energy Efficiency also known as Demand Management

Demand Management:
If we don’t use so much power, then we don’t have to generate it.

Let’s look at power usage from our own personal stand–point. The built in items that consume electricity in most homes are hot water systems, heating systems and air-conditioning systems. In addition we have all those items which help the developed world feel satisfied: Automatic Washing Machine; Dryer; Dishwasher; Cookers and Ovens; Microwave; even Coffee Makers, automatic garage doors, kettles, TV’s, music centres, home theatre, blenders and juicers.

This equipment has made us “energy” hungry as most use electricity to heat water, air or drive motors for a single function. Few ‘recycle energy’. Cooking can also use many other fuels such as gas, wood, coal, charcoal, etc, but waste heat is often vented away. We also have to look at the structural insulation built into our homes, the more we are able to insulate the more we can easily control the internal environment.

Very few house designers look at the running costs of all these devices in terms of electricity, other fuels or even water consumption. And even less consider a unified energy, water and waste strategy. Because of this our power and other utility bills just keep on rising.

But, why not install renewable energy devices, like wind turbines, ground source energy, solar PV for electricity and solar thermal tubes for hot water and air conditioning? Why not collect rainwater and filter it to flush toilets, and collect water from washing and bathing, extract the heat energy, filter it and then re-use it?

Why is it that designers and ourselves cannot think in terms of efficiency. In most developed nation we wash our cars, flush our toilets and water our gardens with drinking water! And at the same time let rainwater go down the drain. Whilst in developing economies ‘drinking water’ is scarce and often unsuitable.

In hot climates where air conditioning is considered desirable, a great deal of electrical energy is used to cool our properties. At the same time in these hot climates the sun is beating down on the roof. By using solar thermal tube technology we can utilised the sun’s heat to assist [strangely] in the cooling process and as a by-product have a tank of hot water for washing.

The picture above shows how solar collectors integrate into an air conditioning systems and at the same time provide hot water. In this type of system electricity savings of between 50-70% are possible.

Like wise with something simple like the provision of hot water for washing the equipment on the left is inexpensive and a 150-200 litre system can serve a family of 5 for all their hot water needs. It is 100% solar powered, and so completely displaces other forms of energy in providing hot water. The hotter the climate the hotter the water, and so it would need to be mixed with cooler water.

There are many ways in which we as consumers can generate our own energy to run the things that we have. We are not saying go without. From micro wind turbines to solar, and ground source energy, there are many developing ‘domestic’ technologies, as well as many proven commercial scale technologies.

Distributed Generation:
‘Small scale’ local electricity generation plants can use the ‘waste heat’ energy for hot water and cooling to make fuel far more efficient by selling this energy to local end users.

Sun Earth Energy has always favoured local, small scale ‘energy’ generation plant, as it is very efficient (up to 90% fuel efficient). By having lots of smaller human scale plants based on renewable power and by demand reduction techniques (as above) means that each community has more control, big and complex grid networks can be avoided, and power outages become less of an issue.

Of course this makes life a lot more difficult for the existing power companies as they would have to deal with far more complexity in terms of many more smaller plants. Alternatively we could turn back the clocks 60 plus years and have these smaller plants owned and maintained by the local municipalities. With exporting excess power back into the existing grid, the grid administration has far more back up power at its disposal and would run by computers.

More importantly municipalities could also co-ordinate waste collection, sewage and electricity which together are mutually beneficial in respect to the generation of electricity, heat and cooling for the local community. Link this to Tri-generation of power, cooling and hot water you have the self contained city. This is the future of the developed world and the future of the emerging nations.
The only losers are the big engineering firms and the oil industry. However even these can change their market profiles. Engineering firms could focus on smaller engineering solutions to co-generation and tri-generation of energy as some already do. The oil firms need to move into energy production, it’s going to be a ‘survival’ strategy for them and their in-built technology expertise that should not be wasted.

In closing, the evidence shows that the user has far more control over their own energy expenditure when they manage their demand and when they are supplied by local integrated municipally run tri-generation power plants.

These tri-generation plants can use ‘fuel’ from landfill sites or from sewage works, or be supplemented by wind, solar, water, geo-thermal, ground source and other renewable energy technologies. It means we use our ‘World’ resources wisely and efficiently, it means that we cut out waste and co-ordinate our utility needs.
In short we must move away from the “throw away” attitudes of the last 30 years and move towards a resource based economy where commodities are becoming scarce and efficiency and renewable energy are the only options.

Economic Truths?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:02:00 +0000

Thanks to

By Bill Bonner
Mumbai, India

O, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!

– Sir Walter Scott, ‘Marmion’

“The trouble with today’s financial system,” we told a Bloomberg reporter, “is that it is based on fraud.”

“At the bottom of it is paper money – itself a kind of deception. It pretends to be real money. And it is real money – in the sense that you can use it to buy things. But it is prone to lie. All the feds have to do is to turn on the printing press and it will tell you that you are a lot richer than you really are.

“This sort of flimflam has been going on ever since the end of WWII. The feds systematically increased the amount of paper money... leading people to think they had more purchasing power than they really had. Today, a dollar is worth only about 3% as much as it was 100 years ago.

“But that’s just the beginning of the scam. They also systematically under-priced credit – in the belief that the key to prosperity is consumer credit and spending, rather than saving and production.

“The system has its architects and its operators – all quacks and mountebanks. They pretend that they can manage the currency and manage the economy. Yet they misunderstand the most basic elements of how a real economy works. Wealth does not come from consuming... it comes from producing.

“The managers claim to be able to manipulate the economy so well that they can actually improve its performance... that is, they say they can make the economy perform better than it would on its own... better than it has naturally for the past two thousand years. By eliminating the cyclical downturns, the feds told us that they would we all be richer... and free from the volatility that plagued us theretofore.

“So they fiddle and fake it... improvising... and making it up as they go along. The raise interest rates... and then they reduce them. They introducing more paper money when it suits them and change banking rules as their theories suggest.

“When anything ‘bad’ happens, defined as something they don’t like, they rush to fix it. But what can they fix it with? A little duct tape of monetary policy. A little fiscal baler twine too.

“Their fixes are not completely random or haphazard. They have a bias – towards more credit, more spending, more cash, and more speculation. If they tighten rates one month, they loosen them for two months. If they run a surplus in the federal accounts one year, they run deficits for the next five.

“Gradually, more and more debt, mistakes, bad judgments and cockamamie speculations build up. And then, the authorities are under pressure... running from one crisis to another... providing credit to one zombie... and bailout to another... and raw meat to a third.

“And then suddenly, the discipline and self-restraints that held them back gives way like a frayed old rope. Then the central banks and Treasury authorities are running free... abandoning themselves to the trickery and fraud inherent in their profession. The European Central Bank says it will provide “unlimited liquidity” to those who need it, in order to fend off a debt crisis in the Old World. In the New World, the Bank of Ben Bernanke is already bailing out big banks in North America as well as those of Europe. And everywhere, the feds are ready to support one another... and bankroll the IMF... with more paper money and more credit...

“...all of them desperate to hold the system together.”

And now they link arms – the Fed, the ECB, the EU and the US... and don’t forget Japan and the BOJ. And off they march – right off a cliff.

Alas Pygmalion is Winding Up

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:31:00 +0000

After years of fooling themselves and everybody else, Pygmalion is being wound up. In the middle of October the two subsidiaries of Pygmalion Group Ltd were put into voluntary administration. See the report on both here;

Pygmalion Corporate Ltd Report on Liquidation PDF
Pygmalion Education Ltd

The numbers speak for themselves.

But, this means that the Group Structure into which we invested over £110,000 will have no basis to work or to survive. Thus at a board meeting on the 9th November at the Institute of Directors (too much irony for me) in Pall Mall, Pygmalion Group will vote for liquidation and our mere 13% shareholding will not stop them.

Please check out the ex CEO Mr C Kilmurry on Linkedin and please note his new position doing what he was doing before. Fiduciary duty I hear you say? No chance.

Stop The Bank Tax going to Government

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 23:17:00 +0000

Brown hails move on global bank tax: This is WHY

Governments must be rubbing their hands together to try and balance THEIR books with massive tax grab on banks. Politicians of every colour can't wait to demonize the banks for the worst reasons: they want their money. Hang on that's OUR money in all those banks!

AT first they just wanted to help the banks with cash injections for shareholding, deals (and maybe a place on a board here and there) and to stop the banks that are too big to fail. Now for this they got their deals and equity stakes. NOW they want to tax banks as well. Well, how is this going to make banking any cheaper, or make bank lend any more money when our Governments want to tax them?

A tax on banks will come out of tax payers and businesses pockets. Come on think about this and WAKE UP! Read the article below to see how the Government PR machine is in full flow to get their hands of more of our money.

By George Parker in London FT Saturday Sorry but direct Copy below
Published: April 4 2010 22:01 | Last updated: April 4 2010 22:01
"Gordon Brown on Sunday said the large economies were close to agreeing a global tax on banks that would cost the financial sector billions of pounds a year but played down expectations that a deal could be struck at the next Group of 20 meeting in June.

The UK prime minister, who held talks with Angela Merkel, German chancellor, last week, said the scene was set for a “global responsibility levy”.

He said Britain, France and Germany were now broadly agreed on the need for a levy, and he hoped the US would come on board.

“Britain, France and Germany have talked about what we can do together,” he said. “We are agreed on the need for a common basis.”

Last week, France and Germany jointly backed an internationally co-ordinated levy.

Mr Brown told the Financial Times he wanted to reignite the spirit of global co-operation, which had faltered in the year since last April’s G20 summit in London.

Although a British election is expected in little more than a month, Mr Brown is engaged in frenetic international diplomacy to broker a global settlement for banks. “The relationship between banks and society has to change,” he said.

He wants a global levy to be agreed at the G20 summit in Seoul in November, along with capital rules to reinforce banks against a future crisis.

Many bank watchers had been geared up for an initiative at the June summit in Toronto but Canada is sceptical. Mr Brown wants the tax agreed on a multilateral basis, using a common base if possible.

The US has used a levy on wholesale funding but Mr Brown says he has an open mind on whether the tax should target assets or liabilities.

He declined to say how much the tax might raise from UK banks, but cited the annual €1.2bn envisaged by Ms Merkel for German banks and $10bn (€7.4bn) planned for the US levy as examples.

Given the relative size of the UK banking sector, that would suggest Mr Brown is eyeing a levy in Britain of several billion pounds.

Mr Brown said he had agreed with Ms Merkel it should be left to individual countries to decide how to spend the proceeds of the levy.

Germany wants to create an insurance fund to protect against future bank failures but Mr Brown fears this could create moral hazard and encourage risky behaviour by banks.

He is also concerned that any extension of the US bank tax – designed to pay for past bail-outs – could run into congressional problems.

The prime minister believes that the problems in the banking sector have not been fully resolved."

Well thanks FT, now lets do some analysis.

Comment by Roger Bootle: Budget 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:13:00 +0000

"Government needs first and foremost to look to its own failings. Incompetent and bloated government is one of the most serious factors holding the British economy back"

China and Renewables: A World Leader in Bio Gas Digesters for Power

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:29:00 +0000

Anaerobic Digester perform some pretty basic functions, but also generate electricity and heat from the resultant "bio-gas". Primarily they are a depository for all kinds of waste, from food waste to human waste, and from spoiled crops to animal slurry. From this cocktail a bio-gas is derived which is primarily methane or natural gas. Admittedly dependent on the mix there is CO2 and hydrogen sulphide as well.

From the resultant gas, a Combined Heat and Power plant can be run to give 1 part electricity to 2 parts heat. Now in very hot climates the heat can be utilised to produce chilled water for air conditioning.

In the 1980's Some 6 million anaerobic digesters were set up in China, which became the biogas capitol of the world, attracting many from the developing countries to learn from it. The ‘China dome’ digester became the standard construction to the present day (Fig. 1), especially for small-scale domestic use. But many new types of rural household digesters have also been built based on water pressure, as for example, the plug flow auto-cycle rural digester, the up-flow small scale digester, the fender digester, and recently, the pulse flow anaerobic reactor.

TEACHER ARRESTED IN MANCHESTER AIRPORT

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:31:00 +0000

A state school teacher was arrested yesterday at Manchester International Airport terminal one as he attempted to board a flight to USA. He was in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a slide-rule, and a calculator. At the afternoon press conference, the Chief Constable said he believes the man is a member of the notorious 'Al-Gebra' movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the police with carrying weapons of maths instruction.
'Al-Gebra is a problem for us', the Chief Constable said. 'They derive solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes they go off on tangents in search of absolute values. They use secret code names like 'X' and 'Y' and they refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.'
As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle'.
When asked to comment on the arrest, Prime Minister George Brown said, 'If God had wanted us to have better weapons of maths instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes..' Parliamentarian aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the Prime Minister. Geoff Hoon said simultaneously that that George Brown was not a good equation for a Prime Minister and the Labour Party needed to have a secret ballot to nominate a new X or Y to sit as Prime minister until May 6th. This is the undisclosed date of the next election that is determined by the Al Gebra movement.

Oil and Gas Industry: New Markets

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:18:00 +0000

In order to secure a very long term future Oil and Gas exploration firms need to team up with Renewable Energy Organisations. In particular in the African Continent. After all everybody claims that they are in the "Energy" business.

One such firm is Sun Earth Energy Ltd who have several schemes running at present. Their basic message is for Africa to export as much oil and gas as they can and to rely on renewables. In particlular Solar Thermal, Wave and Rip Current and Bio Mass schemes. Sun Earth Energy Ltd (or SEE to their freinds) are aiming big.

60,000 MW capacity of electrical generation inside 10 years. Not bad for a fledgeling company. However they have several MOU's and the ear of several Governments. They also beleive in JV's with governments to explore for Gas and to export it, thus giving more back to the host nation - as you can expect, this message is being received loud and clear!

Tidal Turbine, good in rip tides, estuaries etc. Obviously in the right location this type of energy can supply base load applications. This is what Sun Earth Energy are all about. Renewables are easily able to have base load capacity. There are many well tested systems which fit this profile: Tidal, Wave, Rip Currents, Solat Thermal (trough, fresnel,tower and pond), Geo-Thermal, Bio Mass and now several storage solutions have become more practical.

Trough Solar Collectors: they concentrat light to a centrally mounted heat tube which carries away the heat energy in Oil to a heat exchanger. This in turn stores heat energy as Molten Salt in order to buffer between supply and demand. With this installation 24 hour power from Solar is acheivable.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:10:00 +0000

Pygmalion Corporate serves a range of impressive multi-national clients around the world including government and educational bodies

Below are some examples of the diverse nature and scope of our current projects-

AMEC -

AMEC plc is a very succesful global engineering contractor to the energy sector.

Their Growth Regions (GR) Business Unit focuses on the oil and gas sector and is seen as the growth engine of the group. It has 4 regional business units (CIS, China, Middle East & North Africa and South East Asia) covering 15 active countries and counting.

Since 2007 Pygmalion have been engaged in developing an umbrella Business Unit strategy together with a set of integrated regional, country, project & functional strategies.

Pygmalion Consultants are currently working throughout these complex regions enabling many aspects of the delivery process to be succesfully implemented. This includes J/V & acquisition integration, partnering strategies with AMEC customers, leadership and organisational effectiveness support.

BROWN & ROOT - CONDOR -

Brown & Root - Condor is a leading North African JV company focused on the Oil & Gas, Infrastructure, Operations & Maintenance and IT market sectors. Based in Algiers, B&R-C has grown rapidly to deliver an annual turnover today of $750m with 1,300 employees.

The Pygmalion Group consultants worked in partnership with B&R-C for 3 years to deliver a number of important interventions. Under the umbrella of our Cognition development programme, our full-time dedicated Algerian team built strong foundations to enable the Company to effectively define and strengthen its culture & ability to grow.

Support included the delivery of specific knowledge transfer programmes and processes to enhance core competencies and enable B&R-C to operate to international standards.

The Company’s commitment to building effective partnerships with clients, suppliers and sub-contractors was also a key focus. This “total supply chain” approach created a cultural alignment that delivered significant measurable returns to all stakeholders.

Comment from Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour, President & Directeur General
“ B&R-C continues to be very successful driving dynamic growth in all its business sectors. Pygmalion has helped us create the necessary culture as well as embed some of the essential competencies to capture that success.”

Comment from Tadg Slattery, VP for KBR Algeria:
“Our Company has some amazing opportunities but their successful realisation has at times been hampered by complex cultural issues. Pygmalion have used their experience to help us define the issues, develop clear and effective strategies to address them as well as champion a robust implementation plan.”

CATERPILLAR LOGISTICS ASIA PACIFIC -

The Pygmalion Group has developed an innovative partnering relationship with Cat Logistics AP. Our intervention focuses on clarifying the regional strategy, creating an effective leadership capability and the optimum conditions in all the operations and functions to deliver significant growth across Japan, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Papua New Guinea and Australia.

A quantifiable element of the Pygmalion strategy has involved the Asia-Pac team coaching over 40 leaders and managers in 6 countries and delivering tailor made strategy and alignment programmes to executive, functional and facility teams in the region.

As an important part of the global US$45b Caterpillar organisation, Cat Logistics Asia Pacific is spearheading an ambitious growth strategy. This requires the organisation to think and behave differently whilst carefully nurturing the core values that have made Caterpillar so successful.

Along with our organisational effectiveness interventions, Pygmalion have also contributed to expanding Cat’s business development activities by brokering new relationships and opportunities. One project in particular was the successful introduction of Cat to Oil Search Ltd and the winning of a significant Supply Chain/Logistics contract worth tens of millions of dollars.

Comment from Paul A. Joseph, President, Caterpillar Logistics Asia Pacific

"Pygmalion has been an integral part of Cat Logistics Asia Pacific Leadership Development efforts for the past two and a half years, as we position the organisation for growth. They have taken their proven methodology and customised it to meet the needs of our geographically and culturally diverse organisation. The specific projects they have developed and executed compliment and integrate well with our established Performance Management process."

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND & NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK -

Pygmalion has developed bespoke leadership programmes for the bank's Regional Managers as part of a comprehensive leadership development initiative.

BAA - Our engagement with BAA has been an intense one,taking over 320 people through a training programme to enhance employee relations and improve communication. Rated as best training provided in BAA at Heathrow. Working with the senior teams across the business we have been involved in helping them to redefine and enhance their relationships with staff from all levels to prepare them for the challenges of the future.

HEWLETT PACKARD - The Pygmalion Group has developed a partnership with HP to co-create extensive programmes for organisations and clusters of organisations. These programmes combine the raising of aspirations and expansion of mindsets, with the radical use of technology to enhance learning.

Current projects focus on the education sector in South Africa, Middle East and Europe.This partnership also involves the UK Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and is an example of how Pygmalion can adapt and develop our offering to work in a creative way with our clients to focus on specialist projects.

OIL SEARCH -

The Pygmalion team conducted a significant Strategic Analysis of the Oil Search business in Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Middle East. This led to a series of radical recommendations and to Pygmalion supporting the business in a range of key initiatives to address issues and to support their growth strategy.

For the last year Pygmalion have had an embedded Senior Consultant, Andrew Boardman, delivering innovative change-management support within the Papua New Guinea Logistics operation.

THE HALLIBURTON GROUP UK & NORTH AFRICA - In North Africa we are working with Brown & Root Condor, a joint venture business of the Halliburton Group. In the UK we are assisting the Government and Infastructure side of Kellogg Brown & Root

HONEYWELL CHINA -

Pygmalion was engaged by Honeywell's President Shane Tedgerati to align the four Honeywell business units behind an innovative "one China" strategy.

Using a unique blend of cognitive change tools in a dynamic "open space" strategic workshop we have worked with leaders from all these businesses to challenge their beliefs and behaviours. The process was powerfully augmented by structured inputs from the MDs of McKinseys, Booz Allen and some major Chinese Universities.

We are now working with the GM of Honeywell Turbo in Shanghai looking at a range of interventions to support their business which is experiencing phenomenal growth.

TULLOW OIL & GAS - In response to an overheated market in oil and gas, Pygmalion have been working closely with the senior management of Tullow in the UK, South Africa and Ireland to create not only a Performance
Management culture but also a culture of accountability and excellence. This will enable the business to manage the huge growth they are experiencing.

Expensive Business Training Needs to be Good, but Good Training Needn’t be Expensive

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:29:00 +0000

A new type of training seminar offers the high quality companies are used to but at a truly affordable price. Inspirational Seminars Ltd is using the medium of seminars, which they have branded ‘Quick & Dirty!’ Instead of asking companies to book their staff on a 2 or 3 day programme, they have encapsulated the ‘real meat’ of these programmes in seminars just 3 hours long.

Training staff and management in the ‘Soft-Skills’ is seen as an investment in people however when the economic outlook is bleak, what was previously thought of as an investment becomes seen as a cost. But how can a company be fit to weather the storm if for example they stop motivating their sales people and line managers with good training? Companies shouldn’t be as much concerned about the economic outlook, as much as they should be on the look-out for good training that will continue to build their business.

Inspirational Seminars is a training company that is offering companies a new way to continue development of their staff but at a very affordable price. The ‘Quick & Dirty!’ concept allows organisations to continue with the essence of vital training whist allowing them breathing space to recover. When the budget allows, more in depth face to face training can take place using the same world class trainers and course writers to maintain continuity.

In recent years, the training industry has seen quite a lot of seminars that are really only vehicles to sell companies and individuals longer and more expensive courses; they contain very little in the form of usable information. The ‘Quick & Dirty!’ seminars offer people a stream of ideas during the 3 hours that people can go away and use immediately. These seminars will be rolled out over the UK and Europe after a series of pilot schemes starting in Oxfordshire.

John Burke, a director of Inspirational Seminars Ltd says; ‘the benefits to companies who take advantage of this type of training is that they get high quality training with low investment, they do not lose people from the office for more than half a day and there are no hotel costs involved. But perhaps one of the most important benefits is that both the material and delivery are of the highest quality because the seminars are run by very experienced, world-class trainers of international acclaim. Another benefit that companies find is that this type of training fills a gap until they are in a situation whereby they can undertake more in-depth training’.

He continues, ‘since people are the ‘life-blood’ of any company it is of course important for companies to continue the learning and development of people within the organisation. Most HR Departments are inundated with information from training companies and so the process of making decisions as to which company to use can be very much like a minefield these days. What companies should bear in mind is this: although expensive training needs to be good, good training needn’t be expensive’.

For additional information on the availability of these seminars, please send your email to info@inspirational-seminars.com or visit http://www.inspirational-seminars.com and visit the ‘Quick & Dirty!’ Seminar text at the top right hand side.

About Inspirational Seminars Ltd

Inspirational Seminars (ISL) is a consortium of trainers who have all worked with well established training companies over the last 20 years. These are people who have worked closely with each other and have now come together to provide unsurpassed quality training programmes to companies in the UK and Europe. Some of their trainers are psychologists, some are NLP Practitioners and all have personal experience in every subject in which they train.

Inspirational Seminars’ team of dedicated professionals aim to bring to companies first class, world-class results-oriented ideas that will improve the performance of individuals thus improving the overall performance of a client company. This is done with well developed and established methodologies and close working relationships with customers.

Inspirational Seminars offers Public Courses and Seminars throughout the UK and parts of Europe covering a wide range of sales, management and personal development. And because these programmes can be adapted for individual customer needs it means ISL can provide around 80% of most companies development requirements.

BOE Cut Rates by 1.50%

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:59:00 +0000

After one of the most hotly debated rate decisions in recent times, the Bank of England delivered its largest interest rate cut in 15 years today, slashing the UK base rate by a full 1.50% to 3.00%, in an effort to shield the ailing British economy from the fallout of the global credit crisis. The move follows on from last month’s coordinated 0.50% cut with other major Central Banks, as the credit crisis increased its stranglehold on the global economy.

Faced with mounting evidence that the UK economy is headed for recession, the Monetary Policy Committee has come under increased pressure to take more decisive action. Earlier this week Britain’s service sector, the backbone of the UK economy, was seen contracting at its sharpest rate on record while factory output posted its longest decline since the 1980’s recession, heralding further job losses. However, the most influential of recent developments was the sharp contraction in third quarter GDP, confirming the UK economy is on the brink of a recession, sharply reducing consumer and business confidence for the coming year.

Recent comments by Governor Mervyn King stating that “it now seems likely that the UK economy is entering a recession” signals further monetary easing is in the pipeline.

Major Interest Rates

Major Interest Rates
US Fed Fund Rate 1.00% 29th Oct 2008
EU Min. Bid Rate 3.75% 8th Oct 2008
UK Base Rate 3.00% 6th Nov 2008

Source: HIFX Financial Services Ltd

Technorati Link

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:33:00 +0000

Technorati Profile

Its all about cross networking and interconnections!

Or is it just to get Technorati up the google rankings by inward links? So to balance things here are a list of my blog and web interests with lots of great partners and projects: No particular order.

G8way
Jamie Lawrence Football Academy
JLFA Blog
Refill Food
Cherrie Box Media
Emerging Markets Investor Services Ltd
Watersons Marketing Group
Inspirational Seminars Ltd
Inspirational Seminars Blog
Sylvia Modu
Faye Klein Lingerie
DMR Ltd
Bevin Fagan (who sadly died in April 2008)
Gold Investments
Property Investment and Credit Crunch
Business Start Ups
Yorkshire Network
Gold Bullion Trading
Click4Marketing
Affordable Seminars
Barbur Realty
Canal Craft
Management Resource
Unique Sounds

Plus a whole load of ongoing projects in Africa to build Solar Tower Power Stations, renewable energy systems and exploding the myth of global warming and the great carbon tax con.

I am also very keen on lean government along the lines that Hong Kong adopted and not the over-bloated British Model!

Start a Business in a Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:21:00 +0000

In today's world its the adults that seem to shoulder all the responsibility and provide our children with guidance and advice.

However, there comes a time when adults of all age need some time to relax and enjoy themselves. So hide the kids eyes, here is a simple business idea aimed squarely at the masses.

Just like the pioneering work of Ann Summers in de-sleezing porn and bringing the sex industry to the high street in an acceptable and fun format, now comes FAYE KLEIN (http://www.faye-klein.com/).

Its a replicatable website that allows anybody to own an exotic lingerie store. Thats right a web store, with no stock lines to buy, no unsold stock sitting in the warehouse, no wondering what the next fashion will be. Its all out of the box. AND ITS FREE!!

Its a take on the PARTY PLAN. The web master and supplier give you a series of web sites to promote a range of 10,000 lingerie items, complete with shopping cart facilities, secure payment systems and everything you could possibly want. They provide banner images, and customisable web sites that you can put your own logo and images on.

Takes about a day to get up and running, including all the customising. What more could any budding your entreprenuer want.

The trick though is to drive traffic to the web site so it will start to sell products. So link to other web sites, get into directories, e-zines, newsgroups, use contacts and friends alike to get it promoted.

Their best affiliate is earning $50,000 per month!

Now that is not to say that just anyone can do this, but with effort and expertise people are earning good money on the web in the most unusual businesses and ways.

Everyday Story of Top Management around the Global Village

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:25:00 +0000

Pygmalion Group Ltd comprises of Pygmalion Corporate and Pygmalion Education.

Education has been active in UK, Jordan and the South African Townships using our own Programme to advance the aspiration of children the world over. We have some great joint ventures coming up and will let you know how these progress

Corporate is active in the UK, China, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Khazakstan on Engineering, Oil and Gas projects where we assist in the creation of corporate vision and its implementation by all levels of management within the organisation.

They can also assist in the personal development of the managers and directors they tutor and advise for their change management work