Leadership

Posts about Leadership of business, people and thought

DRIVERS Framework
Reading Time: 5 minutesCustomer Experience Has Entered Its Governance Era For more than a decade, customer experience has been discussed as a cultural aspiration – the DRIVERS framework helps executives to understand its impact. Organisations spoke about empathy. They invested in journey mapping, launched listening programmes and tracked sentiment. Yet many leadership teams [...]

Introducing the DRIVERS Framework

 in Business / Leadership / Teams  tagged Governance / Leadership / Strategy / Success by
Reading Time: 6 minutesGoverning Service Where Strategy Meets Reality with Enterprise Service Management Organisations rarely collapse because strategy is flawed.They falter when service — the daily delivery of promises — cannot sustain the weight placed upon it. Enterprise service management is not operational plumbing. It is the mechanism through which trust is either [...]

The A–Z of Enterprise Service Management

 in Customer Experience / Leadership / Management  tagged Communication / Customer Spectacles by
+1% Culture
Reading Time: 6 minutesThere is a persistent belief in modern organisations that meaningful performance requires a dramatic intervention. A transformation programme.A system replacement.A strategic reset.A cultural overhaul. Boards often wait for the moment when a bold initiative will propel the organisation forward. Yet when you study consistently successful businesses, a different pattern emerges [...]

Don’t Wait for the Big Fix — Build a +1% ...

 in Leadership / People / Teams  tagged Communication / Continuous Improvement / Team by
Customer-centric
Reading Time: 6 minutesWhy customer-centric focus fails without governance — and how leaders fix it 1. The uncomfortable truth: most board agendas are still inside-out Most boards would say they put customers first. Very few agendas reflect that claim. Customer topics often appear late in meetings, framed as performance reports rather than decision [...]

How to Build a Customer-Centric Boardroom Agenda

 in Customer Experience / Leadership / Management  tagged Business / Communication / Leadership by
Leadership Questions
Reading Time: 6 minutesIf your executive team feels aligned, but there is something not quite right, ask yourself these leadership questions, starting with this one: When was the last time you disagreed properly about something that mattered? Many leadership teams mistake calm meetings, polite agreement, and steady activity for alignment. In reality, avoidance [...]

10 Leadership Questions that Executive Teams Avoid

 in Leadership / Personal Development / Teams  tagged Communication / Leadership / Team by
Net Promotor Score NPS
Reading Time: 6 minutesSeeing B2B Customer Success Through the Right Lens For many boards, Net Promoter Score (NPS) has become the default proxy for customer success. It is reviewed regularly, discussed confidently, and often treated as evidence that the organisation is either “doing fine” or “needs attention”. The problem is not that Net [...]

Beyond the Net Promoter Score (NPS)

 in Business / Customer Experience / Leadership / Management  tagged Business / Customer Experience / CX / Leadership by
Sustain - SUCCESS Framework
Reading Time: 5 minutesKeeping Growth Alive After the Excitement Fades with Sustain Every transformation begins with energy. The first workshops spark new thinking.The new rhythm feels refreshing.Teams experience early wins.Leadership sees movement.Confidence spreads. And then — slowly, quietly — reality returns. People get busy.Priorities multiply.Operational pressure reasserts itself.Urgency shifts.Enthusiasm fades into routine.Routine fades [...]

Sustain – SUCCESS Framework

 in Business / Leadership / Management / Teams  tagged Business / Communication / Leadership / Team by
Executable Plan
Reading Time: 5 minutesTurning Customer Truth Into Coordinated Movement The Executable Plan is the discipline that stops Account-Based Growth from becoming a well-framed intention rather than a lived organisational behaviour. It is the point in the SUCCESS framework where understanding becomes movement — where strategy gains a pulse. There is a dangerous moment [...]

Building an Executable Plan – SUCCESS Framework

 in Business / Leadership / Management / People  tagged Business / Communication / Leadership / Team by
Customer Spectacles
Reading Time: 4 minutesWearing Your Customer Spectacles – How it can shift organisational behaviour. There is a moment in every organisation — usually subtle, often unspoken — when the internal truth drifts away from the customer’s truth. Leaders still believe they’re customer-centric. Teams still talk about value. Dashboards still pulse green. The strategy [...]

Wearing Your Customer Spectacles – SUCCESS Framework

 in Business / Customer Experience / Leadership  tagged Customer Experience / CX / marketing / NPS by
Customer Segments
Reading Time: 5 minutesCustomer Segments – Who Deserves Your Best? Many leadership teams still don’t know who their best customers really are. They know who shouts the loudest.They know who spends the most time with them.They know who complains.They know who buys occasionally but demands constantly. What they often don’t know is: Which [...]

Customer Segments Development – SUCCESS Framework

 in Business / Customer Experience / Leadership / Technology  tagged Business / Digital Transformation / Leadership / Success by
Understanding & Unification
Reading Time: 6 minutesUnderstanding & Unification – Where Strategy Meets Reality Most leadership teams believe they’re aligned. The quarterly review ends, the dashboard looks healthy, the pipeline report shows green, and everyone around the table nods with confidence. Then a customer says something that stops the room cold. – “That’s not what your [...]

Understanding & Unification – SUCCESS Framework

 in Business / Leadership / Technology  tagged Communication / CRM / Leadership / Strategy by
Strategy & Governance
Reading Time: 5 minutesIf you read the introductory post in this series, you’ll know that SUCCESS begins with the discipline that holds everything else together. Here, we start with S — Strategy & Governance: the foundation of predictable, aligned commercial growth. The discipline that determines whether your organisation will actually grow — or [...]

Strategy & Governance – SUCCESS Framework

 in Business / Digital Transformation / Leadership / Project Management  tagged B2B / Leader / Leadership / Success by
SUCCESS Framework
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhere Growth Becomes a Leadership Discipline Most growth initiatives don’t collapse because the model was wrong. They collapse because the rhythm is lost. A small misalignment here, a missed review there. A decision made on assumption. A customer insight diluted. A Heatmap ignored. A success plan left to gather dust. [...]

The SUCCESS Framework Series

 in Business / Digital Transformation / Leadership / Technology  tagged Business / Leadership / Team by
Christmas Future
Reading Time: 8 minutesChristmas Future – The Era of Cognitive Transformation 1. Introduction — The Acceleration to 2035 When I first wrote The Post of Christmas Future in 2014, the world still felt full of uncomplicated technological optimism. We pictured electric cars, self-driving systems, virtual reality training suites, 3D-printed homes, and an emerging [...]

The Post of Christmas Future 2035

 in Business / Leadership / Technology  tagged Business / Leadership / technology by
Christmas Past
Reading Time: 6 minutesTen Seismic Shifts in the Decade of AI and Uncertainty I. The Dickensian Frame: Looking Back to Christmas Past to Learn Forward Every December, reflection becomes ritual. It’s when leaders, like Scrooge before his ghosts, turn to the past not for nostalgia—but for truth. When I first wrote The Post [...]

The Post of Christmas Past – 2025 Edition

 in Business / Leadership / Technology  tagged Artificial Intelligence / Business / technology by
Leadership Alignment
Reading Time: 5 minutesOrganisations rarely break at the bottom. They fracture at the top. Leadership alignment is key to recovery. Misalignment inside a leadership team isn’t dramatic at first. It begins quietly, in the background: different interpretations of the same data, different definitions of success, meetings where people nod but leave with different [...]

Leadership Alignment – Where Recovery Takes Root

 in Business / Leadership / Management / Teams  tagged Alignment / Communication / Leader / Leadership / Strategy / Team by
Focused Execution
Reading Time: 7 minutesThe A–Z of Focused Execution distils the behaviours, decisions and rhythms that separate organisations that talk about progress from those that actually achieve it. Each letter highlights a practical principle, the common pitfalls that undermine it, the C-suite actions that drive it, and the people lens that makes it stick. [...]

A to Z of Focused Execution

 in Business / Digital Transformation / Leadership / People  tagged Execution / Focus by
Board - Customer Alignment
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen an unhappy strategic customer leaves the room, what does your boardroom really sound like? Introduction: The Door Closes, the Real Conversation Begins The handshakes end, the smiles fade, and the customer leaves the room. Within seconds, the conversation changes. Targets. Timelines. Blame. A quiet sigh of relief that the [...]

The Sound of Board and Customer Alignment

 in Customer Experience / Leadership / Teams  tagged Customer Alignment / Customer Spectacles / CX / Leadership by
A to Z of Culture and Collaboration
Reading Time: 6 minutes26 leadership behaviours that turn strategy into execution Introduction: The Invisible Advantage Strategy might set the direction, but culture and collaboration sets the speed. Every leader knows the strategic map, but few measure the invisible friction that dictates execution speed. In today’s complex world — marked by hybrid workforces, cross-functional [...]

The A to Z of Culture and Collaboration

 in Business / Customer Experience / Leadership / People  tagged Collaboration / Culture / Leadership / Team by
Stakeholder Engagement
Reading Time: 4 minutesIntroduction: Beyond the Boardroom: The Strategic Shift Stakeholder engagement has become one of the most misused phrases in modern leadership. For many organisations, it still means investor updates, community statements, and polite Q&A sessions at annual meetings. The goal is often compliance, not connection. But the world has changed. Stakeholders [...]

Shifting Stakeholder Engagement for Real Alignment

 in Business / Leadership / Project Management  tagged Business Change / Leadership / Relationship / Transformation by
A to Z B2B Customer Experience
Reading Time: 8 minutesWhat really drives loyalty, trust, and value in your B2B Customer Experience? B2B Customer experience isn’t a department anymore — it’s the arena where every B2B organisation now competes. Products can be copied, prices undercut, and technologies leapfrogged, but how customers feel when they work with you determines whether they [...]

The A to Z of B2B Customer Experience (2025 Edition)

 in Business / Customer Experience / Leadership  tagged Customer Experience / Customer Services by
From Pitch to Delivery - Where B2B Trust Breaks Down
Reading Time: 4 minutesWinning the deal is only half the battle – Pitch to Delivery Success is Key In the pitch room, the atmosphere is electric. Slides are polished, ideas flow, and promises are made with confidence. Customers nod along, excited by the possibilities. They say “yes” to the vision. But the true [...]

From Pitch to Delivery: Where B2B Trust Breaks Down

 in Business / Leadership / Management / Marketing / Sales  tagged Leadership / marketing / Sales by
Alignment
Reading Time: 4 minutesB2B Growth slowing, but why? When B2B growth stalls, leadership teams often point the finger at market shifts, aggressive competition, or disruptive technology. Those factors matter, but in countless organisations I’ve seen, they’re not the real killer. The silent assassin of B2B growth is misalignment across functions. It doesn’t scream [...]

The Silent Killer of B2B Growth: Misalignment

 in Business / Leadership / Management / Teams  tagged Communication / Leadership / Sales. Marketing by
A to Z Digital Leadership
Reading Time: 8 minutesDigital leadership isn’t just leadership with shinier tools. It’s a different discipline altogether. Traditional leaders rose through hierarchies, steered with experience, and relied on authority to get things done. Digital leaders still need authority and experience, but they also need speed, adaptability, and the humility to learn faster than the [...]

The A to Z of Digital Leadership

 in Digital Transformation / Leadership  tagged Digital Leadership / Digital Literacy / Digital Transformation / Leadership by
Project Rescue
Reading Time: 9 minutesWhen projects derail and when to move into Project Rescue Every leader has faced it: the project that starts with promise, burns through months of effort, and then stalls. Deadlines slip, costs spiral, and meetings feel more like crisis briefings than progress updates. In the private sector, that might be [...]

The A to Z of Project Rescue

 in Leadership / Management / Project Management / Technology  tagged Business / Communication / Leadership / Success / Transformation by
Making Digital Transformations Stick
Reading Time: 6 minutesContinuous Improvement Beyond Go-Live The Myth of “Finished” In the final blog of the series, we dive into how to ensure that your digital transformations stick. In the first two blogs of this series, we looked at how to craft a digital transformation vision that inspires, and how to lead [...]

Making Digital Transformations Stick

 in Digital Transformation / Leadership / Management / Project Management  tagged CX / Digital Transformation / EX / Project Management by
Reading Time: 15 minutesIntroduction In Part 1 of this series, we explored how to craft a digital transformation vision that truly inspires — one that speaks to every stakeholder by answering the question: “What’s in it for me?” But vision alone doesn’t deliver outcomes. Many organisations begin their transformation journey with optimism, board-level [...]

Leading Digital Transformation: From Vision to Reality

 in Digital Transformation / Leadership / Teams / Technology  tagged Digital Transformation / Leadership / Strategy by
digital transformation vision
Reading Time: 7 minutesCrafting a digital transformation vision is of paramount importance if you want your organisation to embrace digital change. Too many digital transformations start with a tool, a vendor, or a budget line — but no real vision. The result? Programmes that burn money, frustrate teams, and deliver little more than [...]

Crafting a Digital Transformation Vision That Inspires

 in Digital Transformation / Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Digital Transformation / Project Management / Vision by
A to Z of Customer Alignment
Reading Time: 14 minutesIntroduction At Oak Consult, we believe that customer alignment is the difference between transactions and partnerships. That’s why we’ve built this A to Z of Customer Alignment: 26 practical lenses to help leaders, managers, and teams see alignment in action, understand why it matters, and put it into practice. Most [...]

The A to Z of Customer Alignment

 in Business / Customer Experience / Leadership / Teams  tagged Customer Alignment / CX / Success by
Purpose-driven Projects
Reading Time: 9 minutesPurpose-Driven Projects – Yes the what and the how are important, but what’s often missing is the why. Most organisations measure project success with the familiar three: time, cost, and scope (sometimes quality is added too). Deliver to budget, hit the dates, and stay within scope — and on paper, [...]

Purpose-Driven Projects: Why Mission Matters as Much as Milestones

 in Business / Business Skills / Digital Transformation / Leadership / Project Management / Teams  tagged Business / Communication / TCQ / Team / Vision by
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhy even the best proposition underperforms when your teams aren’t pulling in the same direction — and how to fix it. We Know What We Do. So Why Isn’t It Landing? You’ve got a strong product or service. You’ve invested in development.The customer results are great. And yet… Sales aren’t [...]

Your Proposition Isn’t the Problem — Your Alignment Is

 in Business / Leadership / Teams  tagged Business / Communication / marketing / Sales / Team by
Reading Time: 7 minutesBusiness strategy is never static. What worked a decade ago doesn’t always cut it in 2025. The pace of change, the rise of digital, the climate agenda, and shifting customer expectations mean that leaders need a new lens. Back in 2014, Oak published the original A to Z of Business [...]

The A to Z of Business Strategy (2025 Edition)

 in Business / Business Skills / Leadership  tagged Business / Customer Centricity / Digital Transformation / Quality Management / Strategy by
Oak Consult, Customer Experience, CX
Reading Time: 5 minutesHelping teams build a culture that truly puts the customer first by wearing customer spectacles Introduction When was the last time your team truly saw the world as your customers do? Most organisations say they are customer-focused, but targets, processes, and politics often pull attention inward. The result is experiences [...]

Customer Spectacles: Seeing Through Your Customer’s Eyes

 in Business / Leadership / Teams  tagged Communication / CRM / Customer Experience / CX / Leadership by
Milestones, Inch Pebbles, Project Management
Reading Time: 5 minutesIt’s fair to say that I’ve been involved in my fair share of projects during my career. Some have been market changing product launches or operational transformations and some have been must do, dull, but important projects. Others have been misguided, bonkers and failed projects. I’ve learnt from each and [...]

Effective Projects – Inch Pebbles, Milestones and Tombstones

 in Business / Leadership / Project Management / Teams  tagged Delivery / Project Management / Projects by
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

 in Business / Leadership / Social Media / Teams / Technology  tagged 3D Printing / Artificial Intelligence / Automated Vehicles / Crowdfunding / Robotics by
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

 in Business Skills / Leadership / People / Personal Development  tagged Communication / Organisational Change / People Management / Performance Management by
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

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People  tagged Advocate / Amazon / Apple / Customer Experience / Customer Satisfaction / Disney / Innocent Drinks / Net Promoter / Promoter / Prospect / Ritz Carlton / Zappos by
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

 in Business Skills / Leadership  tagged Business Planning / Goals / marketing / Objectives / Sales / Scorecard / Strategy / Vision by
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

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Communication / Seven Deadly Sins / Simon Sinek by
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

 in Business Skills / Employability / Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged 007 / BPM / Change Agent / Change Catalyst / Change Management / James Bond by
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

 in Business Skills / Leadership  tagged A to Z / Inspirational / Leader / leadership qualities / Leadership Style by
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

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / Personal Development / Teams  tagged Can Do / Energy / Focus / KPI / SMART / Teamwork / Vision by
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

 in Business Continuity / Business Skills / Information Security / Leadership / Management  tagged Horizon Scanning / Risk Assessment / Risk Management / Risk Treatment / Threats / Vulnerabilities by