When working with Boards and top teams:

How to Facilitate a Strategy Workshop

Any business consultant worth his salt needs to know how to work with top teams to define their strategy, success factors, values and key drivers. This article is a how to guide and sets out a typical 6 step process.

Four_Lessons_for_Change

Managing change is a given in today’s world. As a manager of change, understanding people’s reaction to change will enable you to prepare and plan your communication through the change lifecycle.

Top_Team_Effectiveness

Outstanding top teams deliver greater value to the organisation than average or poor performing teams. Yet little is known about what makes these teams outstanding. This article outlines the five top conditions for highly effective teams and what the CEO can do to deliver these conditions.

Team Effectiveness – 5 Factors to Manage

Managing teams is a challenge for all leaders today. A team is a complex entity. If it is underperforming it may be difficult to identify the real reason for underperformance and where to focus development. This article uses Beckard’s model of goals, roles, processes and relationships to help managers identify which development area they should focus on.

Recession Proof Boards

This article sets out how the skills and experience of the Board can help businesses survive the recession.

When working with HR:

HR Beating Recession – 5 things to do

Another recession specific article.  HR are often the first to be cut in downturns.  What can you do to prevent this happening and keep yourself relevant and employed.

Pitfalls to Avoid When Developing Competency Models

Lots of organisations today use competencies to underpin their HR initiatives – talent management, recruitment and selection, training and development. But it is so easy to get it all wrong. This article points out some basic pitfalls organisations typically run in to and how to avoid them to make your HR initiatives run smoothly.

How to Measure ROI on People Development

A criticism of HR professionals is that they are not business focused enough. This article looks at how to measure the financial return on investment of training and development interventions.

Secrets to Successful Hiring – Its Better to Hire a Squirrel

Making a mistake in recruitment is costly – typically costing an organisation 1.5 times the individual’s salary. In addition, poor recruitment has a negative impact on morale and motivation. Getting the right person in the right job is not difficult – so long as you have the right criteria. Using competencies based on motives and traits helps to prioritise where you should focus your effort.

Engaging Management Consultants

There are literally thousands of consultancies out there who promise to solve all your organisational woes. However, how do you decide between them and engage the consultancy which is right for your organisation and your issue. Taking time in the early stages, providing a detailed brief, asking the right questions during the pitch, will mean you stand a better chance of getting what you need.