It’s the time of year when business leaders are stepping up the gas to kick start their 2011 strategic planning.
With the countdown to next year underway, I challenge you as an experienced executive coach and business strategist to change your business for the better by ensuring that all your people are driving forces – in [...]

“If you want different results, change your activities”.
This powerful call to action from business mentor and executive coach Jack Daly has galvanized me to change tack on more than one occasion – with great success.  
With so many businesses hunkering down, cutting costs, bemoaning a sales shortage – and allowing their sales teams to let [...]

As a business strategist I acknowledge that few of your employees can become the company’s next CEO.
As re my previous posts on boosting employee morale, motivating your sales people and conducting the perfect management meeting, I urge you to recognise and nurture the people on your bus for the valuable role they play.
Watching Undercover Boss [...]

In my previous post I challenged you to think about the structure of your business – and asked you if your people are focusing on the right things.
As a specialist in leadership coaching, I also questioned whether your departments are operating a ‘turf war’ in which you end up as referee – a role which [...]

In my last post I asked you where you want to be in four years’ time; whether you are ready to make the transition to a new role, freeing up your time to try new challenges and experiences.
Let’s assume you feel you are ready, and you have the requisite management team in place. As a [...]

As a business strategist, I know how important it is to be aware of which tools to use, when and how. With the growing importance of social media, the following chart from www.horngroup.com is a useful start point.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Social Media Action Plan Template

Tool
Purpose and Strategy

Monitoring tool
Listening and measurement

Twitter
Headlines, engage, ideas sharing, sales, solve service issues, [...]

Here’s your leadership coach’s quick and easy way to discover whether your senior management team are singing in perfect harmony or marching to different drums.
This experienced business mentor calls it the Five Key Priorities approach:

Take your three-year vision and, if you haven’t already done so, break it down into 12 quarterly targets/objectives.
For the next quarter, [...]

Do you know what your critical success factors are?

When innovating and creating new business ideas and concepts – do you test and challenge:
* How robust your idea is?
* If your people have the necessary skills to make it work?
* If the idea will pass muster with your customers and prospects?

Are you among the CEOs and business owners who spend too long in the business achieving too little?
Do you focus on what you want to do instead of what you need to do?

In part 1 of this post on achieving a 30 hour working week, [...]