Do you assume you have to provide big-company benefits and opportunities when you are still an SME and need everyone to take accountability? It’s a common mistake made by second generation organisations. Here’s why. As a company moves from first to second generation, it can actually become quite big – the EU definition of SME includes “enterprises which employ fewer than 250 persons and which have an annual turnover not… read more →
Businesses grow up with a certain ‘culture’ – it seems simply to develop, often without intention. Check out this article for why you need to examine your organisation’s culture and for some useful questions to ask yourself. In our social lives we recognise unwritten rules – like inappropriate language, for example. In our business lives there are also unwritten rules, which seem to ‘morph’ into the company’s culture, and assume a life… read more →
In marketing our services to businesses large and small, I’ve noticed something interesting – there’s a widespread confusion of ‘organisation development’ with ‘HR’. Organisation development (OD) is the process of building an organisation as a whole. OD specialists like ourselves carefully design, plan and implement activities to grow the organisation, its employees and its stakeholders, and we work closely together with our primary client – usually the leader of the… read more →
The most common misconceptions about leadership influence your way of thinking about yourself, your life and your everyday challenges. Do you recognise yourself in the following? “Leadership means dominating others” Your influence as a leader depends on many factors which vary from one situation and one person to another. Just a few of the many factors you need to take into account include the reliability of each team member, relationships… read more →
On the subject of key concepts or models that can make the biggest difference to the way you run your business, here’s a thought: the likelihood is that you have great technical skills, and quite possibly great social skills. But do you have the skills in place that you need to run your organisation? Possibly not. And you can’t run a good organisation on technical skill, or social skill, alone.… read more →
Are any of these situations familiar to you? An associate you ask to do a task for one of your clients (as you lack the necessary expertise yourself), speaks to the client direct, and next thing you know, they’ve taken a brief from the client to do some more work for them and not mentioned it to you…OK, or not OK? You agree a job, a price and a deadline… read more →
This question is part of the mystery of the nature of humankind. What are we in essence? And in influencing collaboration in people and groups are we taking people back towards, or away from, their natural behavioural roots? Watching children play, the answer is ‘obvious’ – girls are, boys aren’t. Experiencing a live orchestra – a big yes. Watching the amount of violence and aggression in the media, you must… read more →