You will have heard the saying - if a tree falls in the forest does it make a noise, well Productivity is kind of the same, Are you really productive if no one knows or rather how do you know you are productive if you are not actually measuring it? A question we always ask clients is how you view your business? Is it effective, ...

We have all been to those off site 'strategic' meetings where you spend more time hiking through hills, playing golf, river rafting, falling off tables in the obligatory 'trust' exercises and, I'm sure, many more "Team Building" exercises I haven't even thought about. What a waste of precious time, don't get me wrong I'm not saying t...

Becoming a Budget Ninja may not sound like something to aspire too but believe me, once you learn the ways of the budget Ninja you wont go back! Your busy getting prepared, you have studied with the grand master of the finance department and know what your challenges are. You've carefully read (and printed out our info-graphic) for 8 Tips...

As part of our run down on the 4 Meeting structure which really comes out of Patrick Lencioni's book Death By Meeting (also referenced in his book The Advantage) last week we talked about the first two meeting types, the Daily Check In and the Weekly Tactical so lets talk about the Strategic Meeting and why it's critical. Strategic decisions a...

We are excited to launch our new Virtual Quality Management Service which is designed to provide companies who do not have a dedicated Quality Management resource the support normally associated with a full time person but without the cost linked to employing that full time person. We do this by offering companies a set number of 'da...

We have talked a lot about the benefits of a thematic goal but did you know we created a template that you can download and get stuck into using right away? Here is the link to get your very own copy of it completely free Grab Your FREE Template For your FREE template of the Thematic Goal process just fill in the form and we will send you a co...

As part of the 4 Meetings process we talked about having a scoreboard set up for your 3 or 4 key metrics that you want to track for each quarter. There are a number of templates around that you can use, you can develop your own as well but we thought we would share one of ours. Overview We've structured the Scorecard to make it as simple as possibl...

As part of a run down on the 4 Meeting structure which really comes out of Patrick Lencioni's book Death By Meeting (also referenced in his book The Advantage) last week we talked about the 5 minute meeting, this week it's the Weekly Tactical Meeting we're discussing. You'll remember from our summary (check here if you don't!) that this is the 45-9...

I used to work for a boss who had an over riding rule, "The  answer is YES" no matter what, we answer yes then figure it out, then we do it. While from a marketing point of view this may well have been great, from a real world perspective it was terrible, let me explain. For a start there was an ever growing mountain of things to do, thin...

The Daily Check in is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, its a check in session where daily schedules, activities and issue alerts are shared between the team so everyone starts on the same page each day. The meeting should last no more than 5 minutes, 10 minutes at the most! There is no agenda for this meeting and you sho...

Meetings are a complete waste of time!.. well if that's how you feel then you're probably doing them wrong! I know sounds strange when you go to so many meetings to hear that but yep you're doing them wrong and what's more, as a leadership team, there are only 4 types of meeting you need to be having, that's right, only 4 meetings but lik...

We have all been there, we argue black & blue that it's round when someone else argues nope, it's a square, the weather is too hot or just right, you should set the machine like this or like that, the examples are endless.  I was talking about this top of viewpoints to a client last week and pulled out this image that I've used many times ...

We thought it was time to get a quick bit of feedback from everyone about how they see 2018 shaping up and their focus for next year, and what better way than one of our 60 second surveys. We want to know about your 2018 focus for your business is it a big bold new direction or a continuation of the current long term plans? Create your own user fee...

For many people it's budget time again and I don't know about you but for me, doing the annual department budget was never my favourite task. My first budget was terrible, it was largely just given to me and not knowing much better I said sure I can do a 5% cut in costs! Having been through the loop a few times now I've learned the odd thing o...

If you want to change the culture in your organisation focus on the behaviours, no big shock really but what if I said there is a good chance that your own measures or business metrics are fighting against your efforts to grow your culture and improve behaviours?   Lets Look At An Example  We worked with a company who said that "Quality i...

The Thematic Goal process is, as we discussed here, a process for creating a rallying cry to give everyone focus on the single most important thing in your business, right now. It's executed by using Supporting Objectives with Lead measures that we discussed in our last post, here. Once you have your lead measures then, it's time to get into action...

The Thematic Goal as we discussed here, is your rallying cry to give your organisation the laser focus it needs to have on a specific topic. In a sense you create your own 'controlled' crisis without a crisis. Now that you have clarity about what is the most important thing your organisation needs to focus on, it's time to figure out the next stage...

Did you ever notice how what looked like impossible tasks or deadlines seem to just happen when there is that sense of crisis? "If we don't achieve X then we" loose the major customer or the company or whatever it is. People rally around, pull together and suddenly everyone is heading the same direction and you make the numbers or the deadline? It ...

What are you trying to do?  For the last 3 times I've started to write a particular article and then stopped, restarted, then stopped again. The reason?.. it just doesn't look right, it's not how I had it in my head, it's not... perfect. It wasn't till I was out walking the dog that it hit me, I was stuck in one of those really dangerous spots...

I've sat in a few, ok a lot of exec & operations meetings at companies as they discuss the various metrics that are being used to monitor the performance of the company and make some fairly major decisions. Each time I do I see largely the same thing, and it's not good. The range of metrics used in businesses always surprises me in the commonal...

"Now THAT's an hour of my life I won't get back!" ..it's a phrase I have heard a number of times leaving meetings, I'm willing to bet you have as well, in fact come on, let's admit it, it's a phrase we have all probably used. Meeting are generally those parts of the business that people hate and it doesn't seem to matter if you are an exec or anyon...

Summary This NZ based electronics manufacturer needed increase and sustain manufacturing capacity to meet increasing orders. We were asked to help evaluate the capital investment options of a new machine to provide the increase in capacity with a budget of approx. $200-300K available. The Challenge Our client, a growing New Zealand Based Electronic...

It's easy to get caught up with what everyone else is doing, to try and guess what's in their heads or what their strategy is for the way forward. People and companies all over the world spend countless hours and bundles of money trying to figure out what the other guy is doing or going to do rather than focus on the important thing, what are they ...

There are as many ways to run a to do list as there are days in the month, probably more! The other day I was having a coaching session with a new leader in a business and they were sharing their to do list set by their boss with me. I found it quite an eye opener, there were a great many things, 10 in total with an A against them inferring these w...

There are so many area's as a leader that you need to focus your energy on from making sure your team are performing well, those improvement projects you need to do to get those business metrics heading in the right direction and of course not forgetting the monthly reports and bottom line results! The list feels never ending. What if there were a ...