People

Posts on the power of people, relationships and getting the best out of both

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 Project Management 1
Reading Time: 7 minutesThe A to Z of Project Management is more than a list of buzzwords — it’s a practical guide for leaders, sponsors, and delivery teams navigating today’s toughest projects. In a world of shifting markets, hybrid teams, and relentless pressure to deliver ROI fast, organisations can’t afford to treat delivery [...]

A to Z of Project Management

 in Business Skills / Management / People / Teams  tagged Acceptance Criteria / Agile / Business Case / Critical Path / Planning / Project Management / TCQ / Testing / Virtual Teams / Waterfall 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
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
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

 in Business Skills / People / Teams  tagged Customer / Customer Journey / Customer Knowledge Management / Listening / Persona / Research by
Rocket Fuel for the Soul 11
Reading Time: 10 minutes  What does ‘Rocket Fuel For The Soul’ mean to you?  Getting a rocket to take off, break the earth’s atmosphere and beyond our solar system to the stars takes a huge amount of planning, energy, determination and investment. So it is for us as individuals if we want to [...]

Rocket Fuel For The Soul – Take Aim and Shoot ...

 in People / Personal Development  tagged Attitude / Exercise / Goals / Meditation / Relationships / Self-help / Self-Limiting Beliefs by
3
Reading Time: 14 minutesWelcome to the final part of this A to Z of Inspirational People. If you missed Part 1 including; Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Charles Darwin, David Attenborough and Guy Kawasaki,  please click here. If you missed Part 2 including; Hilary Clinton, J.K. Rowling, Kelly Holmes, Jeff Bezos and Larry Page, please [...]

A to Z of Inspirational People – Part 4

 in People by
4
Reading Time: 16 minutesWelcome to Part 3 of this A to Z of Inspirational People. If you missed Part 1 including; Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Charles Darwin, David Attenborough and Guy Kawasaki,  please click here. If you missed Part 2 including; Hilary Clinton, J.K. Rowling, Kelly Holmes, Jeff Bezos and Larry Page, please click [...]

A to Z of Inspirational People – Part 3

 in People  tagged Mahatma Gandhi / Mohammed Ali / Mother Teresa / Nelson Mandela / Richard Branson / Robert Baden-Powell by
8
Reading Time: 16 minutesWelcome to Part 2 of this A to Z of Inspirational People. People inspire me in so many different ways; whether that be through significant breakthroughs in technology, advancement in science, progression of thought or overcoming adversity to succeed. Hopefully this A to Z series will make you think about [...]

A to Z of Inspirational People – Part 2

 in People  tagged Guy Kawasaki / Henry Ford / Hilary Clinton / Isaac Newton / Isambard Kingdom Brunel / J.K. Rowling / Jeff Bezos / JFK / Kelly Holmes / ken blanchard / Larry Page by
9
Reading Time: 15 minutesI recently read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography – Total Recall, and it’s a great read from a truly driven, focussed, and like him or not, hugely successful athlete, actor, politician and business person. I got to thinking about other inspirational people and what we can all learn from them, so I’ve pulled together [...]

A to Z of Inspirational People – Part 1

 in People  tagged Albert Einstein / Anita Roddick / Ben Saunders / Bill Gates / Bob Geldof / Charles Darwin / David Beckham / Eve Ensler / Florence Nightingale / Freddie Mercury / Schwarzenegger by
A to Z, Product Management, Ansoff Matrix, Market, Product Development 9
Reading Time: 16 minutesProduct management can be a complex and often misunderstood discipline in business. In reality Product Management in its broadest sense, touches every part of an organisation that sells products and services, and everyone has their part to play in the product life-cycle to ensure that customers get the best possible [...]

A to Z of Product Management

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged advertising / Business / Forecasting / marketing / Product Management / technology by
Managing Poor Performance 1
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn part 1 of this two-part post I covered the potential impacts of poor performance, the causes and your responsibilities as a manager. In part 2, I’ll be guiding you through a seven-step process to help you deal with a poor performer. Tackling Poor Performance Many businesses do have policies and [...]

Stop the Rot – Managing Poor Performance ~ Part 2

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Personal Development / Teams  tagged Feedback / Performance / Performance Management / SMART Goals by
Managing Poor Performance 3
Reading Time: 4 minutesEarlier this year the Roffey Park Institute published their excellent annual report – The Management Agenda. A staggering 46% of UK managers reported that poor performance is not tackled at all well in their organisation, rising to 60% in Public Sector managers. So what do I mean by Poor Performance? Simply put, poor performance is the failure [...]

Stop the Rot – Managing Poor Performance ~ Part 1

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Performance Management / Roffey Park Institute / The Management Agenda by
Culture AND Strategy for Success 1
Reading Time: 6 minutesHow many times have you seen stories in the business press or seen first-hand within your business examples of failures and successes that have been put down to poor strategy OR the wrong culture? One company that suffered the fallout of the strategy/culture collision is Kodak. Kodak was not ambivalent [...]

Strategy AND Culture For Success

 in Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Amazon / Argos / Comet / Habitat / JJB / Kodak by
Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right! 11
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn part 1, we established what Self-limiting Beliefs are, what causes them and how to identify your own, because we all have them. In this post, I will be focusing on the most common self-limiting beliefs and how to start tackling them in your life. It is extremely easy to let [...]

Self-limiting Beliefs ~ Part 2

 in People / Personal Development  tagged Belief / Failure / Love / Self Esteem / Self-Limiting Beliefs / Subconcious / Success by
self-limiting beliefs 9
Reading Time: 5 minutesIf you are one of those people who constantly has negative thoughts or feelings running around inside you, or you find yourself regularly repeating bad habits or destructive patterns, most likely you have a hidden self-limiting belief lurking in your mind, holding you back from reaching your full potential, preventing [...]

Self-limiting Beliefs – Part 1

 in People / Personal Development  tagged Childhood / Self-belief / Self-Limiting Beliefs by
Star Performer - Attitude or Aptitude 6
Reading Time: 4 minutesI’ve been thinking a great deal of late about what makes the difference between a good team member and a great one, or for that matter a good leader or a great one. Aptitude or Attitude? I’ve come to the conclusion that Attitude is a key defining factor. Who are [...]

Aptitude or Attitude ~ What makes a Star Performer?

 in Employability / People / Teams  tagged Aptitude / Attitude / Energy / Focus / Responsibility / Self-belief / Star Performer / Tenacity by
James Dyson 5
Reading Time: 5 minutesFollowing on from my last post Fail to Learn, Learn to Fail, I’ve done some research into some famous business people to see how rocky their road to success was. I was surprised by a few names and fascinated by others, so I thought I’d share six of the best [...]

Six of the Best …. Failures

 in Business Skills / People  tagged Albert Einstein / Failure / J.K. Rowling / James Dyson / Richard Branson / Success / Walt Disney / Winston Churchill by
Pace in your Organisation, Execution
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn part 3 of this 4 part series of blogs I covered the importance of PACE to improve organisational effectiveness and speed and specifically Communication: PACE = Planning + Alignment + Communication + Execution The fourth and final part of The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation [...]

The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation ...

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Accountability / Decision Making / Delivery / Execution / Goals / Targets by
communication and collaboration 1
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn part 2 of this four part series of blogs, I covered the importance of PACE to improve organisational effectiveness and speed and specifically Alignment: PACE = Planning + Alignment + Communication + Execution The third part of The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation will focus on Communication of your [...]

The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation ...

 in Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Collaboration / Communication / Culture / Inform / Inspire / Involve / Team by
Alignment 4
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn part 1 of this four part series of blogs I covered the importance of PACE in your organisation to improve effectiveness and speed and specifically Planning: PACE = Planning + Alignment + Communication + Execution The second part of The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation will focus on [...]

The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation ...

 in Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Alignment / Business / Decision Making / Human Resources / Pace / Performance Management / Reward / Roles & Responsibilities by
Driving PACE in your organisation 3
Reading Time: 5 minutesSucceeding in today’s competitive business environment requires that your organisation be agile enough to respond quickly to internal and external change. To stay ahead, you have to explore new ways to grow your business – for example, by launching a new product or service or targeting a different marketplace. Speed [...]

The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation ...

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Amazon / Audi / BHAG / Business / Goals / JFK / Markets / Nike / Pace / Plan; Planning / Stratgey by
Politics without the Politics 4
Reading Time: 7 minutesOffice politics is a fact of company life. Wherever there are two or more people working together, there will be politics and there will be opportunity for conflict. However, destructive office politics can demoralise people in an organisation, hamper productivity, and increase turnover of good staff,. Much as you might [...]

Playing Politics without the Politics

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People  tagged Network / Politically Savvy / Politics by
10
Reading Time: 8 minutesCommunicate or Fail may sound a little extreme. It’s not. Organisations and individuals can succeed or fail on the effectiveness of their communications. Communicate or Fail is a two-part post focussing on communications at an organisational level and on a personal level. Part 1 will focus on organisational communication. Good [...]

Communicate or Fail ~ Part 1

 in Business Skills / Leadership / People / Teams  tagged Communication / Employee Engagement / Full Steam Ahead / Microsoft / salesforce.com / Success / Teamwork / Vision / Yammer by
Destiny or Design - Choose to Succeed 5
Reading Time: 8 minutesLife is not something that just happens to you, something you are powerless to do anything about. You have choices. You can choose to succeed. It is never too late to improve your life and implement the changes that are going to lead you to your ambitions. I don’t profess to [...]

Destiny or Design ~ Choose to Succeed

 in Business Skills / Employability / Leadership / People  tagged Accountability / Business Networking / Communication / Goals / Success by
Keep People Inspired 2
Reading Time: 4 minutesBusiness is all about measurement. Peter Drucker’s quote – “What gets measured gets managed” is never more true than in today’s tough economic climate. The use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are at the heart of most high performing businesses. However, there is often one important KPI missing,  and that is [...]

THE Key Performance Indicator – Keep People Inspired

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Business / Communication / Development / Inspiration / Inspire / Leader / Motivation / Peter Drucker / Team by
Measuring Success
Reading Time: 9 minutesIn the sixth and final part in the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the last step in the START process in Brand New, Brand You, Test. So you’ve got to grips with Brand New, Brand You. You’ve developed your Brand – Your values and [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 6

 in Employability / Management / People  tagged 360 Feedback / Bit.ly / Brand / Brand You / Feedback / Google / Klout / Myers Briggs / Social Mention / Technorati / TweetDeck by
Reinforce - Brand New Brand You 1
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn the fifth part in the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the fourth step in the START process in Brand New, Brand You, Reinforce. Now that you have started to establish the Brand New Brand You, it is important that you continually reinforce your [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 5

 in Business Skills / Employability / People  tagged Brand / Brand You / Business / Business Networking / Communication / Employability / Personal Brand / Relationship / Stakeholder management by
Online Brand 3
Reading Time: 14 minutesIn the fourth part in the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the third step in the START process – Articulate. Brand You is who you already are, whether you are consciously aware of it or not. Brand New, Brand You is about building a [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 4

 in Business Skills / Employability / People  tagged Brand / Elevator Pitch / Employability / Interview / LinkedIn / Online Brand / Personal Brand / Telephone Interview / Twitter / Wordpress by
Brand New, Brand You - Self-discovery 7
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn the second part of the series of The Brand New, Brand You, I will be covering the first step in the START process in Brand New, Brand You, namely Self-discovery. START – Self-discovery A personal brand is much more than a job title or how you look. This first [...]

The Brand New, Brand You! ~ Part 2

 in Business Skills / Employability / People  tagged Brand You / Goals / Passion / Personal Brand / Personal Values / Stephen Covey / Success / Values / Vision by
Milestones 2
Reading Time: 7 minutesThere are many theories on implemnting change effectively. Many originate with leadership and change management guru, John Kotter. A professor at Harvard Business School and world-renowned change expert, Kotter introduced his eight-step change process in his 1995 book, “Leading Change” with a follow-up work “Our Iceberg is Melting” in 2006. Step [...]

Implementing Change Effectively

 in Leadership / People / Teams  tagged Change Management / Coalition / Communication / Culture / Harvard Business School / Kotter / Urgency / Vision by
Dodo
Reading Time: 4 minutesWith today’s rapidly evolving technology and business markets in their most challenging time for decades, companies rise and fall faster than ever before. Leaders must constantly anticipate the market and their customer needs and that sometimes means you need to make changes – be that processes, products, organisational structure, or even the [...]

Dead as a Dodo…..Why Teams Don’t / Won’t Change

 in Leadership / People / Teams  tagged Business Change / Culture / Team by
The Oracle 2
Reading Time: 3 minutesWelcome to Part 3 of Leadership Styles: The Oracle The late, great and inspirational Steve Jobs made a statement that neatly introduces The Oracle leadership style: ‘Leaders are fascinated by the future, you are a leader if, and only if, you are restless for change, impatient for progress, and deeply [...]

The Oracle – Leadership Styles – Part 3

 in Leadership / People  tagged Apple / Communicator / JFK / Leader / Martin Luther King / Oracle / Passion / Steve Jobs / Vision / Visionary / Winston Churchill by
Coaching Team 3
Reading Time: 4 minutesWelcome to Part 2 of Leadership Styles: The Coach Author, educator, and motivational speaker, Dr. William Arthur Ward wrote a phrase that I try to remember. It gives me personal strength to do the right thing, rather than the easy thing – ‘The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. [...]

The Coach ~ Leadership Styles – Part 2

 in Leadership / People / Teams  tagged Career / Coach / Coaching / Communication / Feedback / Leadership / Listening / Relationship / Success / Team by
Word Cloud - Elephant in the Room 3
Reading Time: 7 minutesI see two distinct types of ‘Elephant’ in my line of work…and two ways of tackling them. The Management Elephant and the Leadership Elephant. This blog focusses on the latter. If you missed Part 1 – An Elephant in the Room: Management breakthroughs, and are wondering what on earth I’m [...]

An Elephant in the Room Part 2 – Leadership Breakthroughs

 in Business Skills / Leadership / People / Teams  tagged Accountability / Business / Feedback / Goals / Honesty / Leader / Leadership / Relationship / Results / Success / Team / Vision by
Listening for the unsaid! 1
Reading Time: 4 minutesTo paraphrase Wikipedia – An “Elephant in the room” has become a management saying meaning an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. It applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss and based on the idea that an elephant in a room would [...]

An Elephant in the Room Part 1 – Management Breakthroughs

 in Leadership / Management / People / Teams  tagged Discrimination / Elephant in the room / Feedback / Leader / Leadership / Performance / Relationship / Sabotage / Success / Team by
Listen to your People
Reading Time: 3 minutesFor a while now I’ve worked with developing my direct team into being more… More focused, more passionate, delivering more and being more commercially and customer focused. And to a large degree we’ve succeeded. I’m really proud of them and what we’ve achieved so far. But to really succeed and make a step change in our [...]

Stop listening …. and give up!

 in Business Skills / Leadership / People / Teams  tagged Feedback / Listening / Passion / Team by
Mark Conway 1
Reading Time: 5 minutesThanks to those of you who took the time to complete the recent Top Leadership Challenges poll. The top 3 challenges as voted for by Think Oak! readers are: 1. Creating a high performance culture How leaders believe things should get done is a key driver of culture. Leaders establish [...]

Top Leadership Challenges – The Results

 in Leadership / Management / People  tagged Culture / Customer Services / Innocent / Leader / Leadership / Public Sector / Raving Fans / Team / Walt Disney by
Bullying 2
Reading Time: 3 minutesA very wise lady, the late Blanche Eldon, told me something when I was about 15 years old, that has stayed with me ever since. I was in my first management role – a Patrol Leader in a local Boy Scout Troop. We were mid-way through our ten-day summer camp and one of [...]

Feedback: A teaspoonful of criticism, and a bucketful of praise!

 in Business Skills / Management / People / Teams  tagged Behaviour / Coaching / Development / Feedback / Jack Welch / Relationship / Team / Teamwork by