Truly, money is not EVERYTHING, although it seems to be the ONLY thing when it comes to measuring success in business. Let’s take a closer look. Every business is a SYSTEM; a network of nodes—end-to-end processes, departments, business functions, tools, technology; you get the drift—and their connections. Connections or interfaces are the glue that hold …
It is said that one cannot lead what one does not understand. So, how are we taught to understand business? Well, we take business as an organic whole, break it up into its component parts, sub-divide every one of them in ever finer levels of detail, and analyze individual parts to death in order to …
The world of business consulting, advocacy, coaching and training is chockablock full with best-practices, n-step solutions, proprietary methodologies and tools. What they have in common is a prescription for success—i.e. increasing efficiency, cutting cost, and other investments to raise bottom-line results. Dr. Albert Einstein identified this Perfection of Means and Confusion of Ends as …
New levels of thinking—relationships, patterns, and principles other than the current dominant level of thinking—are not hard or difficult but DIFFERENT. What is HARD is overcoming one’s RESISTANCE TO CHANGE; showing a willingness to consider the possibility their might be a different way to solving stubborn enterprise-wide problems. Characteristic of enterprise-wide problems is …
Question: How many outside experts does it take to change a light bulb?Answer: As many as they can get away with, and for as long as possible! Mariana Mazzucato―professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London and founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose―wrote about …
Milton Friedman asserted that The Business of Business is Business, which implies that EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is given a price tag. Consequently, decision makers just have to calculate whether they regard you, or any other animate or inanimate resource, as either ECONOMIC, or UNECONOMIC. Uneconomic refers to something or someone failing to earn an …
Moral Leverage — A Precept for Success AND Failure Read More »
Personal experience as a change manager, and a project manager who implements his own change management advice, taught me that little changes significantly without what I call Executive Sponsorship for Change; i.e. delegation of authority to a dedicated change/project manager, and allocation of all necessary resources. Consequently, the impetus for writing THE ROOT …
People ask me WHY I wrote THE ROOT CAUSE: Rethink Your Approach To Solving Stubborn Enterprise-Wide Problems ? So, let me tell you. How many times have you heard the excuse that “The SYSTEM” made a mistake? Any chance you used that cliché once or twice yourself? What about curtailing or even …
People ask me WHY I wrote THE ROOT CAUSE: Rethink Your Approach To Solving Stubborn Enterprise-Wide Problems? So, let me tell you. You know what they’re saying: “You don’t pay the plumber to bang on the pipes. You pay for knowing WHERE to bang.” Business is a conduit and its THROUGHPUT is …
People ask me WHY I wrote THE ROOT CAUSE: Rethink Your Approach To Solving Stubborn Enterprise-Wide Problems? So, let me tell you. An old friend of mine likes to quip in jest: Be Reasonable; Do It My Way!The number of times I thought of using that line when decision makers share how they …