Dec 30, 2009 | Leadership, Marketing, Uncategorized
Business is basically simple, it is people that generate the complications and distractions, and us that allow the distractions that make it complicated.
The simple rule: spend less than you have coming in, and work like hell to bring it in.
Now the economic sun appears to be coming up again ion Australia, don’t relax, don’t listen to the hustlers who promise the world without a hope of delivering, listen to your loyal customers, understand their needs, service the daylights out of them, look for ways to do everything you do better, and have a great 2010.
Dec 29, 2009 | Uncategorized
Christmas is a great opportunity to contact people you have not had a reason to contact for a while.
Old friends, former colleagues, former clients, those who share an experience or passion and people you just like.
In this world of electronic communication, when you take the time, and make the effort to make that one to one human contact, it is always welcomed. Always.
We are so used to impersonal and mass communication that when one arrives that is personal, warm, and not asking for something other than a bit of your time to say Hi, we warm to it, and the person making it.
This is the human side of Christmas, what makes it worth while, irrespective of your beliefs.
Dec 24, 2009 | Uncategorized
It is Christmas day, so I wish the best for 2010 to the dedicated few and the black dog who dip into this blog on a regular basis.
I hope that what I write touches a nerve, brings a grimace, stirrs a laugh, or motivates some action. The worst outcome is that it gets no reaction at all.
2009 was an “interesting” year in the sense of the old Chinese proverb, hopefully 2010 will be a touch easier, but with difficulty comes opportunity for those who are able to see past the hubris of the status quo, and have the drive to be different, engaging, and daring.
Merry Christmas, and thanks for caring.
Allen Roberts
Dec 22, 2009 | Change, Leadership
It is pretty obvious that the big party in Copenhagen finished like most big parties where there are lots of strangers with different agendas, in an unsatisfactory way for all.
The nonsense of the Rudbott and his sidekick trying to ram through Parliament a unilateral ETS prior to the meeting was confirmed, the concern is that they will continue to try and ram it through, allowing their egos to completely mask the real issues and opportunities.
It is also clear that the globe is rapidly warming, that warming has a lot to do with the impact of humans over the last 150 years, and if we do not do something, we will all be deeply in the poo, or at least our children and grandchildren will be.
Instead of insisting on a new tax on emissions, our leaders should be focusing on the demand side, putting their efforts and largess where it will motivate behavior change for positive reasons, rather than just taxing current behavior and hoping the tax will be effective in reducing emissions. I know the economists will tell you if you tax something, you get less of it, that is true, but it comes at the price of gross market distortion. How much better to enable the reward of desirable behavior?
There are numerous reasons organisations should set about reducing their emissions, and re-order their priorities to be more “green” but it has nothing to do with global platitudes and ego, and everything to do with self interest. Here are just a few:
- Reduce current costs, and as they continue to inevitably escalate, reduce future costs
- Do what a significant percentage of your customer base wants you to do, makes some sense to listen to customers.
- Use the need to make changes as a catalyst for stakeholders, particularly employee, engagement in the values and strategies of the organisation, which will lead to process improvement and innovation opportunities. Recent commercial history suggests that the many of the top companies in 20 years are not yet out of the garage, if they are even formed, the opportunities for innovative solutions to the technical and business model challenges we face today are enormous, just hard to quantify because they have not happened yet, so don’t let the nay-sayers get in the way.
- Attract the “right” type of employee, those who are willing and able to contribute at a greater rate than just somebody with a pulse who can do the job. These “right” employees will be attracted to organizations that are on the front foot with this stuff. Whilst the competition for talent is off many agendas currently, the real competitive edge of any organsiation is tied up in the heads of its employees and service providers, so you need the best to stay ahead, may as well use the “crisis” to attract and keep them.
- Mitigate risk, what if the dire predictions are right, you are far better off having made some changes, and having perhaps a few of them not pay off, than do nothing, and cop the lot in one hit. It is just insurance by another name.
Dec 21, 2009 | Innovation, Leadership
Innovation is about changing the status quo, doing something differently, going against the herd. You can make your intentions obvious by yelling about it, which is not often successful, or you can start changing the perspective of others by a process of intelligent debate, presentation of facts in a different light, or the gathering and demonstration of the relevance of new facts.
Trick to this second route is that you need to be the best informed person in the room, and that takes time, commitment, and a willingness to be “out there” before you get anywhere.
