Communication

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
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
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
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
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
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
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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
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
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
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
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Reading Time: 5 minutesYou would be amazed at the number of people who still don’t understand the importance of networking. Building relationships is crucial – there are many smart, talented people who don’t progress as much as they would hope in their career because they are not visible to the “right” people. Use every opportunity to build relationships with [...]

Business Networking – It’s not ‘what’ you know…

 in Business Skills / People  tagged BNI / Bondholders / Business / Business Networking / Chamber of Commerce / Communication / Confidence / Face to Face / Hull / IoD / LinkedIn / Plaxo / Relationship / Sales / Techmesh / Twitter / Yorkshire Mafia by
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Reading Time: 4 minutesThis week I’ve had the privilege to meet with some fantastic educators from around the region. Some of these conversations were around the topic of employability – what differentiates great from good candidates and what do employers look for in school leavers or graduates? So below I’ve outlined 10 key attributes that I believe are crucial [...]

Employability ~ Who to employ?

 in People  tagged Attitude / Communication / Employability / Experience / Graduate / Hull / Team / University by