On the 14th of March 2012 David Gonski made a presentation at the Australian Institute of Company Directors luncheon on the future of directorship. His speech was thought provoking and whilst I didn’t agree with his position on all of the topics, the consensus on our table was that his views were thoughtfully developed and […]
I recently attended a workshop held by the Australian Institute of Company Directors that was discussing the challenges of compliance, particularly related to the continuous disclosure legal requirements of Australian companies. The intent of the requirement is to ensure continuous disclosure to ensure an equally and adequately informed stock market. A case study was presented […]
Unlimited capacity – wouldn’t it be great to be able to deal with immense volume without experiencing stress or conflict? Much of the challenge exists from pressure below and above – pressure below comes from a multiple of staff that need to direct information to or access information from their boss. From above, the challenge […]
If you have ever found peformance issues and the reasons being given seemingly incredibly complicated, then perhaps distilling the essence back to the number only may be the answer you are looking for. For example, let’s say sales performance is down. A person can provide any number of reasons, incredibly well argued, as to why […]
Business and leading people can both be hard and easy. Getting stuck in a mental rut is also easy, and no wonder as making a similar decision based on past experience makes a lot of sense. It saves time, allows you to move onto the next task. But it also can increasingly become dangerous without […]
If you are in a professional services firm, then one of my favourite books is called Managing the Professional Services Firm. The book describes what to do when you have extraordinarily bright people, smart consultants, who know what they should be doing – but just simply aren’t doing it. The book covers so much more […]
In a meeting today I was talking with a client who has a particularly dry sense of humour, and a great philosophical perspective on ensuring successful delivery of projects. We were talking about change management. His simple and insightful comment was this: “You have two tools you can use for change management – they are […]
Today I was trying to explain why organisations sometimes almost compell their managers to do stupid things – or certainly why it might appear that way to people further down the chain. 1. The glance analysis – the solution to someone else’s problem can often seem obvious. That can be due to the person not […]
It is no surprise that in business the greatest pressure is – of course – on the boss. Whilst staff enjoy up to 14 days per year paid sick leave with 4 weeks annual leave, and cumulative long service leave, the poor business owner who has their house on the line often is unable to […]
Engender self education in your workforce…. Today’s workforce is different. There are so many different wants for people today that their expectations of their employer are higher than they have ever been in history. In absence of common purpose, the focus is on self, “where is my career going, I want more time for family […]