I recently read a fantastic interview with Management consultant, Ralph Sink. He has been a lifelong believer in high-performance systems, also known as self-organizing teams and participative management. These require employees to take ownership of their jobs, to collaborate with one another to establish control over their work, to be innovative, and to deliver results — to maintain accountability for the business and be treated with corresponding respect, regardless of their level within the organizational hierarchy.
You can read the full interview here at Strategy+Business.
Here are some of the gems from the interview:
- On attempts to create attractive corporate cultures without all the hard work: It’s like making wine. Managers who operate by metrics, paperwork, and numbers say, “OK, we’ve analyzed wine. It has sugar in it. It has pulp. It has yeast. It has grapes.” So, they dump those ingredients in a pot, stir it, drink it, and say, “but this doesn’t taste like wine,” and wonder why. It’s because the wine had to go through a process. They may have had the components right, but they overlooked the principles for transforming grapes and water into wine. These managers will look at our approach and say, “Oh, I see what this is. You operate with 20 percent fewer people. You eliminate the supervisors, and everybody is self-managed.” So without any development process, principles, or leadership, they go in and cut head counts. And when they end up with a catastrophe, they say, “This approach didn’t work.” From their perspective, they analyzed the pot and put the elements in and stirred it up, so when it failed, they weren’t to blame.
Continue reading ‘Developing a good business culture is like making fine wine’
I am a huge fan of Eric Chester, an American author, speaker and consultant who focuses on understanding what he calls “Generation Why” (what a cool title!! I wish I had thought of that first). You can see his excellent work at 
I subscribe to 
Why do travelers — be they on business or just visiting — prefer to go to Switzerland rather than, say, Ukraine? It’s no surprise: Switzerland offers a much more attractive combination of factors. It’s easy to get there and to travel within the country, it’s clean and visitors feel safe there, and Switzerland’s combination of traditional culture and natural beauty is justly famed all over the world. Yet the continued popularity of Switzerland and other desirable destinations is by no means a given. Maintaining the relative purity of the environment while promoting and growing tourism is critical as competition intensifies among regions to attract the ever-growing number of travelers.
Dr Graeme Codrington offers insight for South Africans (and others) on how not to be left in the dark when it comes to strategic planning as well as attracting and retaining talented young people with creativity - particularly when traditional solutions aren’t working. Consider how you could use the current load shedding to your advantage!
Explore four trends that are currently changing the face of business as Keith explains how these trends are resulting in the need for a radical transformation in the process of developing leaders who are capable of leading into the future.
According to The Sunday Telegraph, April 20, 2008, David Cameron, the Conservative Leader is channelling considerable resources into targeting people between the ages of 29 to 40. The Tories see this group of 3 million voters as being key to their success in the 2010 general election. 
Every now and again, TIME magazine has a seriously excellent, long and in depth, feature article that grabs my attention. I am not a subscriber, but always check TIME editions out on the newstand. These features are well researched and worth keeping.
I spend a lot of time in carparks, specifically at airports. Normally, I am rushing to park and get checked in. And, at most airports around the world, there are not enough parking spaces, and it can take a lot of time to find an empty bay. But, at OR Tambo International airport in Johannesburg, the carpark has added a wonderful new feature.
They’ve been called everything from narcissists to “Generation Me,” but those wily post-Gen X employees might just show their elders how to revamp an enterprise.
In the same way that freelancers are flocking to 
The Olympic torch has left Athens, Greece on its traditional torch run around the world until it eventually arrives at the Beijing Olympic stadium during the opening ceremony. Right from the first day, it has been met with something that the Chinese officials did not anticipate: protestors. In an unprecendented move, the torch was actually extinguished in Paris so that it could be loaded onto a bus and rushed away from growing violence amongst the protestors. TV news scenes from London, Paris and San Francisco show police beating protestors, dragging them into prison vans and frog marching them away - none of these are scenes that add to the Olympic brand and mythos.
I write this entry as a South African. I say that because we’re extremely hard on ourselves on this end of the planet. We often compare ourselves to the resources, experience and might of the ‘developed world’ when we open our world class attractions. And when things don’t work the way they’ve been billed to, we simply blame our ‘African-ess’ on our inability to deliver to the standards and levels that were expected.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the little purple pill. Although I personally think that big pharmaceuticals should spend more time trying to cure diseases that are part of the scourge of poverty (like malaria and TB), it is noteworthy that one of the biggest money spinners over the past decade has been Viagra - the erectile dysfunction pill developed by Pfizer. 
I found a great website today which takes the lampooning of this part of Boomer management lore a step further. And it will save you about $ 25,000 in consultant’s fees, and two days of your time. The Dilbert website has a corporate mission statement generator that does a brilliant job of churning out the standard garbage that most away days do. 