A essential tool to anticipate problems
‘5 why’ is a tool often used to understand the real cause of a problem. Finding those real causes is often like peeling an onion: one apparent problem or more often symptom of a problem, leads to another, to another, until the root cause is clear. Often...
For freelancers: How to think about the price.
Regularly, I find myself in a discussion with those who sell their time and expertise rather than a physical product, talking about price. How do you set it? After 25 years of doing it for myself, you might think I have some tips? Well, I have plenty of...
The inconvenient truth about marketing
As a marketer, I want data to better understand the risks and impact of investments in marketing. I am a true believer in data, which also means that the limitations of data are factored into my thinking. The nonsense pushed around for decades that by default,...
Does the Corona bug rate as ‘Darwinian’ commercial catalyst?
Robust ecosystems have points of balance; change is incremental, competitive, and evolutionary, leading to a revised point of balance. When a species becomes dominant, that dominance becomes the source of weakness over time, as evolution requires responses to...
The essential template for hindsight planning
How do you execute on that BEHAG? How do you fulfil the vision? How do you accomplish the mission? These are all questions I get from time to time from people stumped at the point where the dream, whatever label you choose to put on it, has to be turned into...
10 Traps to avoid when selling your business
We are in uncertain times, and under those circumstances, perhaps counter intuitively, there are many opportunities for all forms of M&A activity. For many owners of SME's, this Covid crisis is the last straw. You have worked hard for years to build a...
Don’t just sit there: Go and see the problem!
Have you ever noticed that problems are rarely solved by those who have not seen them first hand? Core to 'Lean' philosophy is the Japanese term ‘Genchi Genbutsu' which carries the meaning ‘go and see'. In other words, when you have a problem, do not pore over...
Why does most digital advertising suck?
The fundamental problem with 'digital advertising' is that there is little competition for ideas. In the past, with limited availability of media, the competition happened before the public got to see anything, as those that controlled access to peoples eyeballs did...
The essential lesson for leaders in fiction.
There is rich wisdom to be found in fiction, although you might have to look hard to find it. There are some writers who have used fiction to deliver timeless messages. For example, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had his protagonist Sherlock Holmes utter some really...
The five simple questions for an effective After Action Review
The term 'After Action Review' emerged from the US military, which formalised it after facing a range of disasters in the field, from Vietnam to the Middle East. Finally, it became obvious they were repeating the same mistakes, consistently. They should have asked an...