List

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December 30th, 2019

The market for Second Hand Thoughts is flourishing, never been so huge. But outsourcing your mind is the ultimate laziness.

Many of us spend quite a lot of our time in what we call ‘work’. The business day now has […]

December 27th, 2019

What psychoanalysis taught me about root causes: the comfort of finding them is not matched by the quality of their truth

The degree of comfort in discovering the roots of things, cannot be taken as proof of the truth. The best […]

December 24th, 2019

Karaoke Management Consulting

Is this what people want? Singing along with what the Big Gurus have provided? Music and lyrics? Sometimes I feel […]

December 23rd, 2019

Seeking unpredictable answers

We spend too much time seeking predictable answers. They are not necessarily bad. If I work with Peter, Paul and […]

December 21st, 2019

Out of the box, in the box, what box? ‘We-need-to-talk-about-boxes’ and other useful personality profiles

To think out of the box, one has to recognise first that there is a box. Therefore one has to […]

December 20th, 2019

Benchmarking as a health hazard. Cause of managers severe neck pain confirmed

Benchmarking is a rear-mirror strategy. It’s about catching up with something that has already happened. People who spend too much […]

December 19th, 2019

The hour of Radical Management Thinking. The lines are open.

The hour has come. Radical is the word. From the Latin, radix, it means root. We need to get to […]

December 18th, 2019

Critical Thinking self-test. A 10 point health check for your organization, and yourself

If any of these are a good picture of your organization, you need to put ‘critical thinking’ into the water […]

December 17th, 2019

Decision Analysis and the relentless need to seek, bring and assess options. However…

Many years ago, I got into Decision Analysis at the hands of my good friend Larry Philips of the London […]

December 16th, 2019

The un-reachable workforce. What NGOs with remote operations teach us about organising work

Many years ago, I learnt from the UNHCR, the UN refugee Agency based in Denmark, that many global NGOs of […]

December 14th, 2019

DADYC? (Do Acronyms Drive You Crazy?)

Management cultures, particularly Anglo Saxon, love acronyms. This is something new employees need to learn. If coming from another industry, […]

December 13th, 2019

The formula about what to do when ‘leadership does not get it’, finally revealed.

There are always people who ‘don’t get it’, are against cultural change efforts, do not support a programme, torpedo it, […]

December 12th, 2019

The ‘Great Man’ model of leadership is well and alive, despite largely exaggerated accounts of its death

The Great Man Theory was born in Scotland, the child of philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle (1795 –1881) – “The […]

December 11th, 2019

Speed or quality; critical thinking or fast decisions: the OR is today unaffordable.

Back in 1994, Jim Collins, consultant and author, gained a lot of attention with his book Built To Last: Successful […]

December 10th, 2019

The usefulness of the useless

Nuccio Ordine, an Italian professor, has written an essay of this title, to my knowledge not translated into English. It […]

December 9th, 2019

The ‘Keep Moving’ strategy always wins.

A while ago, I was told an anecdote about an MBA student who returned to their alma mater for a […]

December 7th, 2019

10 ingredients to cook your strategy

List your competitors, then, compare yourself with a different list. Most of the answers lie outside your immediate peer circle. […]

December 6th, 2019

10 strategic options

These are the 10 strategic options you have at your disposal all the time, as I use them with my […]

December 5th, 2019

Status Unfinished: the perfect state of a healthy organization is beta

The perfect state of a healthy organization is unfinished. Like a human being. ‘Born too early’ (Campbell’s hero). Finished structures […]

December 4th, 2019

It’s official: the single, magic bullet, that characterises good leadership is to back off

It should not surprise us that people are constantly looking for the magic bullet of leadership. What makes a good […]