Yearly archives: 2014

Christmas Future, Business, Technology, Leadership
Reading Time: 15 minutesIn the third and last in the series of Think Oak’s Christmas blog posts – The Post of Christmas Future, let’s take a look at the next 15 years in Technology, Business and Leadership and see how they might have changed by 2030. (In case you missed Part 1 and Part [...]

The Post of Christmas Future

Post of Christmas Present 3
Reading Time: 17 minutesIn Part 2 of Think Oak’s Christmas blog posts – The Post of Christmas Present, let’s take a look at the current state of Business, Leadership and Technology. If you missed Part 1 – Click here. The Post of Christmas Present “It was the best of times, it was the worst of [...]

The Post of Christmas Present

Post of Christmas Past
Reading Time: 14 minutes10 Seismic Shifts in Business & Technology and their impact on Leadership I’ve always found that the run up to Christmas has always been a time of reflection and planning for the future.  In this first of a three-part blog – The Post of Christmas Past (and no prizes for guessing [...]

The Post of Christmas Past

The Dark Side of Leadership - 10 Leadership traits that will destroy your organisation 1
Reading Time: 12 minutes10 Leadership traits that will destroy your organisation Having spent 20 years of my life in the corporate world and 10 of them in leadership roles, I’ve been privileged to have worked with some fantastic leaders from across 3 continents. I’ve written many posts on positive leadership for Think Oak! [...]

The Dark Side of Leadership

Moments of Truth, Customer Journey, Manage, CRM, Customer, Insight, Need and Desires 9
Reading Time: 19 minutesCustomer Experience = How customers or prospects perceive their interactions with your organisation Click To Tweet Customer experience encompasses every aspect of an organisation’s offering – the quality of customer care, of course, but also advertising, packaging, product and service features, ease of use, and reliability. How can you drive [...]

A to Z of Customer Experience

Strategy, Objectives, Goals, Marketing, Sales, People, Finance
Reading Time: 19 minutesStrategy creates context for operating decisions. It establishes the playing field and provides guidance for decision-making, the experience and skills needed by employees, positioning of marketing and advertising, the priority of initiatives, how to structure the company, and a many other issues. A plan is necessary to guide decision-making, channel resources, [...]

A to Z of Business Strategy

Mushroom Culture 18
Reading Time: 5 minutesI’m sure many of you have heard people say: They treat us like mushrooms! They keep us in the dark and feed us manure or nothing at all! Click To Tweet Nothing stifles an organisation’s possibilities more than poor communication. Actually that’s not strictly true. Three things do – telling [...]

Avoid the Mushroom Culture – The Seven Deadly Sins

007, Change Management, Organisational Change, Oak Consult, Mark Conway, Management Consultancy 13
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe original version of this post was a partial celebration of the 50th Think Oak! post together with the 50th Anniversary of the James Bond Movies. What better way to celebrate than to talk about very special agents, Change Agents! Firstly what is a Change Agent? A Change Agent is a [...]

007 ~ An Agent For Change

A to Z, Leadership Qualities, Oak Consult, Mark Conway 5
Reading Time: 9 minutesGreat leaders come in all shapes and sizes, genders and cultures, but they all possess many of the qualities I’ve highlighted below in the Think Oak A to Z of Leadership Qualities: A – Agile In today’s economic climate, it is more important than ever for leaders to be agile. Agile [...]

A to Z of Leadership Qualities

Teams, Success, Customers, Oak Consult, Knowledge, Energy, Focus 6
Reading Time: 9 minutesBeing part of a winning team is a great feeling! Building a winning team is hard work, but can be great fun with some amazing results! Below I’ve detailed Think Oak’s A-Z of Building a Winning Team: A – Audit Abilities The very first thing to do when you take [...]

A to Z of Building a Winning Team

business, iso 22301, iso 27001, iso 31001, iso 9001, risk assessment, risk management, threat management
Reading Time: 26 minutesAll organisations, whatever their size or market, face a range of risks affecting the achievement of their objectives. While “risk” is commonly regarded as negative, risk management is as much about exploiting potential opportunities as preventing potential problems. Risk management comprises a framework and process that enable organisations to manage [...]

A to Z of Risk Management

ISO27001, Information Security Management
Reading Time: 19 minutesThe purpose of information security is to protect an organisation’s valuable assets, such as information, Intellectual property, hardware, and software. Through the selection and application of appropriate safeguards or controls, information security helps an organisation to meet its business objectives by protecting its physical and financial resources, reputation, legal position, [...]

A to Z of Information Security

ISO22301, Business Continuity Management 2
Reading Time: 17 minutesBusiness continuity is a far-reaching topic that many business owners and managers do not think about until it’s too late. ‘It will never happen to me’ until it does and then the majority of businesses cease to exist within 2 years of a serious incident. Yes, business continuity can take [...]

A to Z of Business Continuity

Reading Time: 9 minutesWhether you’re a small business with a solitary Twitter account, a mid-sized agency using the latest social monitoring tools, or a huge enterprise with a multi-million pound cross-platform presence, at some point, we all will make mistakes with social media.   It’s OK to be honest and admit that you get [...]

#Fail – 11 Social Media No-No’s

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Reading Time: 4 minutesPart 3 In Part 2 in this series of 3 posts on understanding your customers, I covered the ‘Do’s’ of understanding. In Part 3 I’d like to cover some of the main ‘Don’ts’! Don’t Take Customer Research at face value The value of any research findings depends critically on the [...]

Wake up and understand your customers

Oak Consult Persona 1
Reading Time: 7 minutesPart 2 In Part 1 in this series of 3 posts on understanding your customers, I covered the basics. In this part I’d like to cover some of the main ‘Do’s’ when it comes to improved customer understanding. If you missed part 1 – click here! The Do’s! Above all [...]

Wake Up and Understand Your Customers

Wake up Call, Wake up and Understand Your Customers, Oak Consult 4
Reading Time: 6 minutes‘Wake Up and Understand Your Customers’ should have been my first blog post and not my 78th! It’s taken me a few years in customer facing roles and running my own business to truly get it! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always known the importance of customers, having worked for [...]

Wake Up and Understand Your Customers

Meaning of Life, Oak Consult, Mark Conway, Think Oak 4
Reading Time: 23 minutesBoth Monty Python in their film with the same title and Douglas Adams’ incredible book (and subsequent TV series and Film) – The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, pondered with great humour, The Meaning of Life. I highly recommend both if you haven’t seen them! The latter piece of [...]

The Meaning of Life