Teams

B2B Growth
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Coal to Diamonds
Reading Time: 6 minutesRebuilding an underperforming team or department is a huge challenge. The issues you will face from the team could include low morale, rapid staff turnover and high absenteeism levels. The managers involved could also have poor leadership skills, which is likely to hinder not help the situation. If employees are uncertain [...]

Coal to Diamonds – Raising Team Performance

 in Leadership / Management / Teams  tagged Communication / Self-Aware / Success 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
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
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
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
Teamwork 3
Reading Time: 7 minutesTrue teamwork promotes individual and collective performance. Powerful teams value listening and communicating, sharing work responsibilities, provide support and can even make work more social and enjoyable. Team members are supportive of one another and recognise the interests and achievements of each other. I would go one step further and [...]

Creating Powerful Teams

 in Business Skills / Leadership / Teams  tagged Accountability / commitment / Mission / Objectives / Team / Teamwork / Values / Vision 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
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
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
Teams and Teamwork
Reading Time: 7 minutesTeams and Teamwork have changed The make-up and nature of teams have changed significantly in recent years. Organisations have become more distributed across geography and across industries. Closer relationships between people inside an organisation and those previously considered outside (customers, suppliers, partners and other stakeholders) have become more important. Organisations [...]

Teams and Teamwork 2.0

 in Business Skills / Management / Teams  tagged Business / Knowledge Worker / Lync / Microsoft / Mission / OCS / salesforce.com / SharePoint / Team / Teamwork / Virtual team / Vision 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