In sports and business, we love to see the underdog win against the odds. The ragtag sports team beating the silver tails or the small businesses besting the multinationals. These are inspiring stories, but they are outliers. The trend for...
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The Secret to Keeping Focused
One of the most confounding issues is how not to get distracted in your work. We produce our best work when ‘in the zone’, but getting and staying there is another matter. Creative thinking and solving difficult problems are a challenge when...
How Much can Change in a Decade?
Big changes can creep up on you. Less than five years ago, Australia stopped manufacturing cars, but have you noticed you’re already sharing the road with mostly imported vehicles and likely driving one yourself? At the moment, people are trying to...
Wading Through Treacle
‘Like wading through treacle’ is how a client described to me their experience of meetings with a supplier. Apparently, it was easier to endure unproductive meetings than to say no. As you re-orient to accelerate your career or organisation out of...
Is Innovation Now More Important than Lobbying?
The potential value and role of industry service organisations is about to get far more important as nations scramble to accelerate out of the pandemic-induced global recession. The change facing all businesses is beyond fine tuning. It is...
How Secrecy and Silence Enable Critics
One of the chief reasons that innovation doesn’t happen is fear of criticism from within and outside. Competent leaders inevitably make others uncomfortable. They cause change when it’s needed, creating winners and losers. They draw...
Not What You Do, But How You Do It
You get assailed by information from all quarters on what to do in uncertain times. It’s like we’re being asked to believe that the end-game is the new strategy, structure, product or service. In reality, these are outputs and not results. Knowing...
Who Do You Represent?
Successful businesses sharpen their value proposition by defining their ideal customers or clients. It’s a powerful technique to focus, differentiate, and match demand. However, for peak bodies representing whole industries, is there really an...
The Dark Side of Industry Leadership
I have written a lot about the benefit of industry organisations innovating faster so they can create more value for more businesses. If innovation is not happening when it should, do you know the underlying problem? Look carefully, and...
Capitalising on Outdated Strategies
Opportunity for leaders, organisations and industries comes in many guises. A great question right now, is how can I capitalise on the fact that no pre-pandemic strategy can possibly still be effective and useful? It can take a while for the...