Tag Archives: Analysis

Talentropy?

We’ve been playing with words, images, emotions, icons and so on for some branding work we’re doing on a new offering. Something that fell out of this was a word that I just liked the sound of:

Talentropy

Then I thought a bit more about it – the flow of talent. This seemed like quite a useful concept to me.

As business owners, managers and leaders, there are two crucial concerns – creating value for stakeholders (owners, shareholder, staff, investors, communities, etc.) and finding and keeping good people for our teams. Value and Talent. Continue reading →

Making Improvements: Can Simple Really Work?

Simple Tools...

Simple Tools...

One of our mantras is “keep it simple“, because we work in an area that is complicated enough to begin with!

When we look at how businesses can improve, it inevitably means having to maintain the big picture (where are we heading?) together with digging into the details (as they can often be the blockers). To drive simplicity through what we do, we evolved a very simple set of tools & reports, which we use to run projects.

Why simple, when we’re trying to analyse and solve complex problems? Continue reading →

The Headline Test

What might Concorde crashing on take-off, and the Iraq War Inquiry tell us about making business decisions?

I often end up in situations where I am helping businesses make tricky decisions, some of which may have been put off for some time. They usually involve big, important things that affect people, profit, livelihoods, even lives. Continue reading →

Perfectionism – Enemy of Priority?

Business improvement thoughts come to me in the strangest places…

We’ve just had a period of sunshine and rain that has been great for the grass in our horses’ field, but it has also caused the ragwort to sprout. Ragwort is poisonous to horses and needs to be thoroughly eradicated from fields (I think it may even be an offence to knowingly let it grow).

This means going out with a special fork to remove the plants including the deep roots. My wife asked me to concentrate first on the plants that had grown enough in the week to flower, to prevent them going to seed and exacerbating the problem.

Being my usual self, I set out with the wheelbarrow and fork, determined to clear every last vestige of ragwort from a 3 acre field. Continue reading →

Nine Principles for Taking Critical Action

Recently, we’ve been crystallising our approach to solving problems and seizing opportunities, to build a repeatable, consistent model that can be rapidly applied to save time and money, and create value for our customers – and their customers too. In tough economic times, action needs to be decisive yes, but incisive also – not much point making the wrong decision quickly! Anything that helps in the quest to get it right will help immensely at the moment (and when recovery comes).

Continue reading →