By Wayne O'Neill
Have you ever prepared a powerful presentation full of energy and your best sales points, only to be interrupted one minute into the presentation by an impatient executive who looks at his cell phone and asks, “So what’s the bottom line?” Presenting to an executive team has the potential to open tremendous doors of opportunity. However, in order to pass the glance test, keep their attention and reduce interruptions, senior executives have shared with us some things they wish you knew for a successful dialogue.
By Wayne O'Neill
Advice is plentiful, but wisdom is hard to extract. Here are 15 bits of wisdom shared by successful business executives from a variety of industries
By Wayne O'Neill
As the speed of change continues to increase, change management is a fundamental competency needed by managers, supervisors, and organization leaders. As we coach owners, we find that you want help competing with other companies and customers as you can no longer rely on historical successes and processes. To be effective in today’s market, you need to repackage and gather client intelligence from your frontline technical and operations teams as well as leadership and sales & marketing teams . Avoid the temptation to jump to tactics immediately while trying to uncover solutions. Take time to examine the basics that your organization has to offer that is of value to clients. Follow these steps for success:
By Wayne O'Neill
In working with leaders, we have discovered that many organizations have been frustrated that they cannot solve their problems by just handing leaders a new directive, a new book, or sending them to a new one-day management program at the Hilton. The truth is that each organization is uniquely complex, therefore no one has a “Cure-All” or special sauce that will solve all your problems. Even so, here are some tips from a recent issue of Fast Company magazine entitled “How to Lead in a Time of Chaos” by Roberta Mauson on how great leadership is created and a special sauce ingredient from Richard Branson, founder and chairman of Virgin Group of more than 400 companies and the fourth richest citizen of the United Kingdom, according to Forbes 2011 list of billionaires.
By Wayne O'Neill
While safely guiding organizations through the turbulent seas of change and facilitating enhanced teamwork in organizations by helping them build ‘cultures of authenticity’, Jeff Salz, keynote speaker at the recent TCUF conference, encourages adventurous thinking in order to create a truly meaningful workplace and presents a unique perspective on taking risks while laying out a roadmap for change.
By Wayne O'Neill
When it comes to executing your plan, have you ever felt like you are trying to drive forward by watching your rear view mirror? We know you want to see progress, but are your time and energy being devoured in the whirlwind of urgent activities to maintain day to day operations that you run yourself ragged trying to measure everything and wonder if you are even moving forward? If most of your numbers are lag measures (after the fact), it does not mean that you are a poor leader, it means that the game has changed and you need help executing a winning strategy. In these changing times, you may relate to Mickey Mantle when he said, “It’s amazing how much you don’t know about a game…you’ve played all your life.” At a time when companies and organizations are discovering that they must do more with less, we have found important lessons for the world of business in the book/movie Moneyball.
By Wayne O'Neill
Senior decision makers are struggling with how to get their arms around big data and determining a clear strategy that ties data and analytics to improved performance. Companies deciding to embrace big data do so because decisions based on data-driven evidence rather than intuition transform business with remarkable outcomes. With big data, leaders can measure more accurately, make better predictions, then manage more precisely. More effective interventions can be targeted. Decisions are smarter and produce better results. According to Harvard Business Review, big data has the potential to revolutionize management.
By Wayne O'Neill
Big data and high performance analytics (HPA) are changing the game and sweeping the world in terms of competitive differentiation. According to IBM, “Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90% of the data in the world has been created in the least two years alone.” Harvard Business Review says “As of 2012, about 2.5 exabytes of data are created each day and that number is doubling every 40 months or so.” Where does all this data come from? How is it used? How can it be of benefit? How can organizations overcome the challenges and build strategies to gain better insights into markets…
By Wayne O'Neill
The health of a culture can make or break an organization. In “The Biggest Companies of the Inc. 5000” and in Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” there are consistent themes. These companies: 1. Consistently outperform their competitors, 2. Invest in leadership development, 3. Prosper through a healthy workplace culture. In this blog, we will focus on developing a healthy workplace culture. As Ken Blanchard, a best selling author including the One-Minute Manager, said, “Organizational culture is simply ‘the way we get things done around here.’ The organization’s culture can help or hinder the success of an organization.” Peter Drucker once expressed that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” You can have a fantastic vision or brilliant strategy, but successful execution rests on a supportive culture…
By Wayne O'Neill
Priorities are changing in higher education, government and business. This week, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announced, “More than $500 million in grant money has been allocated to approximately 300 community colleges and universities in the United States of America for job training.” This grant reflects a “needed shift in priorities in community […]
