9 reasons you should implement checklists
A key part of managing activity is to record it as necessary to be done, check it off when done, and make any observation necessary for next time. This holds true from the development of a strategy down to the daily activities on the shop floor, and...
How to calculate a robust number that reflects ‘value’?
It is easy to define the value of a piece of machinery. It is the revenue generated by the machine, divided by the costs to generate that revenue. Accounting with the benefit of hindsight is easy. It is not so easy when forecasting what the future value may be....
That fatuous claim of total commercial infallibility.
I just had another of those moments that caused an unpleasant 'tummy churn'. A post from a so called 'business coach' that promised a 'business turnaround in 90 days'. Perhaps they know something I do not. Having stumbled around in this arena for 35 years, I have not...
The single common denominator of all successful strategies
Over 45 years I have seen all sorts of strategies. Some work, some fail, some are elegant articulations of a vision and mission, some are a few words on a sheet of paper. Some are data driven, some full of a breathless accounting of what they will make the...
How to avoid brand suicide
Any marketing activity falls somewhere on a continuum between tactical and strategic. Most are trying to generate activity and profit today, as well as investing in your brand for the long term. Getting the balance wrong is delivering your brand to the slaughterhouse....
The single question every entrepreneur should ask themselves. Often.
Every business starts small. The biggest on the planet all started somewhere, in a garage, dorm room, lab, somewhere between the ears of the entrepreneur. Most fail, or at best deliver a return that would have been dwarfed by the interest on the same investment...
4 steps to effective cross functional performance improvement
When you want superior performance, implement a number of key cross functional metrics. Gaining agreement on a set of metrics that genuinely track a projects cross functional performance is not a simple task. KPI’s are usually focussed on functional...
Knowing is not the same as understanding.
Warren Buffets side-kick Charlie Munger repeats a story in his 2007 USC Law School commencement address which he tells often. The key part is from minute 28, that I think absolutely applies to the practice of marketing. "I frequently tell the apocryphal story...
Who will be left to do the cleaning?
Gas, it seems is the way forward, according to the Prime Minister. It seems to me that the conflicted debate about the evolution of our energy sources between fossil fuels and renewables, who wins and who loses, is more about the deployment of capital, and the...
Finding your state of creative flow
A short while ago I felt very sad, and uplifted at the same time. Weird. I was watching my 4 year old granddaughter play , keeping herself company in her own fantasy world, jumping from one thing to another without any hesitation, no sense of self consciousness, but...