Think Oak Blogs

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

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

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

The A to Z of Digital Transformation
Reading Time: 7 minutesOver the past decade, Oak Consult has published a series of A to Z guides covering the essentials of business: strategy, leadership, employability, risk, building winning teams, and customer experience. Each has combined timeless principles with practical guidance to help leaders reflect and act. Digital Transformation now joins that series. [...]

The A to Z of Digital Transformation

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

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)

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

Reading Time: 6 minutesYour guide to getting more from the world’s most talked-about AI assistant ChatGPT Introduction This A–Z guide highlights 26 top features of ChatGPT, explained in plain English. ChatGPT has quickly gone from curiosity to everyday tool — helping people write, analyse, code, and create at speed. But with so many [...]

A to Z of ChatGPT Top Features

Reading Time: 6 minutesYour Guide to AI Concepts, Capabilities, and Practical Uses Introduction Artificial Intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept — it’s here, shaping how we work, live, and make decisions.But with the jargon, hype, and complexity, it can be hard to separate the essentials from the noise. This A–Z guide gives [...]

A to Z of Artificial Intelligence

Reading Time: 3 minutesSometimes, the best ideas don’t arrive during office hours. They sneak up on you late at night, when the world quietens down, the emails stop pinging, and your brain finally gets the space to roam. That’s exactly where I found myself recently — staring down a problem, circling an idea, [...]

Burning the Midnight Oil with AI: A New Kind of ...

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe Setup: A Real Business. A Real Brief. A Fake Partner. Let’s skip the metaphor for a moment. I’m not writing this blog because I had a quirky interaction with Artificial Intelligence.I’m writing it because I’ve just wasted days — literal, expensive days — trying to get something done for [...]

AI – You Can Teach a New Dog Old Tricks

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

A to Z Overcoming Failure, Oak Consult, Mark Conway
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn this A to Z of Overcoming Failure, we’ll look at 26 inspirational quotes from some of the biggest ‘failures’ on how to overcome failure and set-backs. Failure in anything is tough. Life throws failure at us from an early age – learning to walk, potty training, making friends, reading [...]

A to Z of Overcoming Failure

Follow the Leader, Oak Consult 3
Reading Time: 9 minutesWhen I was a child we used to play a game whereby someone was picked to be the leader and they had to run around and the others had to mimic their actions, movements and follow their path, the more complex, the better. Those that didn’t follow, deviated from the ‘route’ [...]

Follow the Leader

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 11
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

1
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

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 ...

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

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

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

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

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

4
Reading Time: 19 minutesThe world of work has evolved and changed significantly in the last 20 years. No longer is a job for life and you need to be in the driving seat when it comes to career progression. When did you last make time to reassess what you want from your career? [...]

A to Z of Career Progression

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

Passionate, Ambitious, Reliable, Trustworthy, Straight Talking 6
Reading Time: 18 minutesThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines Marketing as “The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” I think I prefer Seth Godin’s description: The art of telling a story to a customer that they want to hear, that lets them persuade themselves to buy something. Inherent [...]

A to Z of Marketing

man and woman near table 3
Reading Time: 13 minutesSelling is at the heart of business, even if you’re not in ‘Direct Sales’. Think about the following scenarios:        You’re trying to convince your manager to develop a new product, but can’t get him or her to take things further        You’d like to introduce [...]

A to Z of Direct Sales

Oak Consult, A to Z of Employability
Reading Time: 9 minutesI often get asked by teachers, lecturers and students what are the key skills and qualities that businesses are looking for in young people leaving full-time education for a career in business. In this A – Z I’d like to give some pointers on the very important topic of Employability. [...]

A to Z of Employability

2
Reading Time: 7 minutesFollowing on from my last post the A-Z of Business Social Media, I’ve had some feedback that whilst the A-Z was really useful, for people who are new to social media, particularly in a business sense, they don’t know where to start and how to get the most out of their limited [...]

The New SMS – Social Media Strategy

12
Reading Time: 14 minutesA – Alerts You can sign up for Google Alerts quickly and easily. Using those keywords and phrases from your preliminary research online, you can elect to have any instance of those keywords and phrases as Google finds them sent straight to your inbox. Enter the topic you wish to [...]

A to Z of Business Social Media

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

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