Here in Australia, we’ve not long seen the end of the Australian tennis open, with champion outcomes for some of the best (and I think nicest) players in the world: Ashy Barty and Rafa Nadal. Neither rest while they’re at deuce. They’re always looking for the next game, set and ultimately, match point. While these two have very different styles of play, they share a ruthlessly consistent pursuit of mastery. That pursuit takes us to a concept that we can leverage as we seek improvement in our various professional ‘games’, and it too is called a setpoint. Setpoints There are various definitions ..read more

THE IMPACT OF INTERESTING TIMES It’s not widely known, but the proverb ‘may you live in interesting times’ is a curse. And at the moment life certainly feels ill-fated. The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the working lives of many, with jobs lost and others threatened. Those who feel threatened want badly to secure their current position. For others, the period of instability presents an opportunity for them to fast-track their careers, especially as we emerge out of the crisis. The epidemic, as is the case with any business interruption, also brings into sharper focus more common desires an ..read more

Experiential Learning and Learning Styles David Kolb is an American social scientist known for his work in experiential learning. He reckons that we learn through spiralling through processes of participating in ‘concrete’ experiences, about which we make reflective observations, which enable us to develop abstract conceptualisations about our experiences, which then enable us to actively experiment with doing things differently. In other words, we adjust our mental models of how we behave in life, based on learning from our experiences. Kolb reckons that out of this process, there are nine le ..read more

Create, Transform and Grow Many of us reach that point in our lives when we simply don’t want to work for or report to another person. I got there late; many of my friends got there much earlier. Regardless of timing, creating a business needs an idea, strategy and a business model, marketing and selling. To further develop the business, it needs to be progressively transformed looking to pivot (incrementally innovate) or shift (disruptively innovate) around adjusting or changing cost drivers and revenue dynamics. To grow the business, you need to have an idea of what our endgame is, know how ..read more

People in White Coats? For a lot of folks, the word research still conjures up images of grey-haired men and women; yes, I can see you stifling a yawn now. Well, there’s research and research … Make a Difference There’s lots out there that’s no use to anyone whatsoever. Then there’s the stuff that makes a difference; that’s what I’m interested in. My interest is and has always been in research that makes a difference. Some people call it engaged research, others call it applied. I don’t care what you call it, as long as it solves a problem as has a value to someone. Engaged Rese ..read more

If You Don’t Write It Down, It’ll Never Happen The old saying “failing to plan is planning to fail” is true, but then so is the expression “no plan survives first contact with the energy.” So, what’s my point? Planning sets up implementation intent; in other words, if you write it down, it’s more likely to happen than if you don’t Five Steps to Strategy As with many things, there are lots of different approaches to strategic planning. The number of steps in planning varies depending on the approach adopted, but I reckon when you distil it all down, there’s about five First is r ..read more

Great Product, Shame About Your Business Model Building or operating a business is difficult. Mistakes and failures go with the territory. This is especially true if you’re attempting some form of business transformation. You might have great technology, a terrific product or an outstanding service offering, but that’s only part of the equation. If your business model is flawed, you’re going to struggle It’s All About Value A business model summarises how an organisation creates, delivers, and capture value, usually in a market setting. Constructing business models is a part of busin ..read more

Organisational Transformation is Enabled by Leadership Change projects targeting organisational transformation don’t usually fail because of what they’re trying to achieve or because of how they’ve been planned. They usually fail because of leadership … The objective of most organisational transformations, aka change projects is to close a financial or non-financial performance gap that’s been exposed by an internal or external event. Internally, it’s usually regular monitoring of performance against KPIs or auditing: some form of review. Externally it can be almost anything tha ..read more

Oh No, Not Another Blog Post About Change! How can you say anything new about change? Discussion and debate about it go back millennia to the era of the great Greek philosophers. More recent times have seen umpteen methods and theories, most of which are variations on a theme of how difficult it is for individuals and organisations to make change. Why is change, especially in business, so often difficult? Short answer? People. The Challenge of Change Leading change, especially strategic change, is challenging. Ambitions for seamless change and the abilities to deliver them are u ..read more

Putting the ‘D’ in Strategy Over many years academic texts have portrayed strategic planning as an almost purely logical process of identifying strategic problems, analysing company strategy, formulating strategy, implementing strategy, and monitoring it.There are elements of truth in this portrayal, but the practice of strategic leadership and some recent influential thinking in the strategy space demonstrates that good strategy isn’t just about data analysis; great strategy has to be creative too. Transformational strategy has to be designed. The Harvard Convention For years the standard app ..read more