With much uncertainty — Brexit, Trump, China — buyers in some markets are keeping their hands in their pockets. Yet in business, we are still expected to meet our profit targets. As an executive, your reality is that you still need to grow sales and market share. Growth means take decisive action and fast.
How can we do this?
Read MoreIf many of your customers are “sitting on their hands”— citing Brexit and Trump and Iran and US-China trade war—then your sales are flat, or declining; you must downsize your costs or upsize your productivity. Upsizing your people’s productivity is easy to say, hard to do. It’s always been tough to do, but now many of your people face constant change and face constant stress. For example, imagine working in one of the big four banks urgently completing many recommendations of The Royal Commission.
Read MoreWhat value does your product or service create for your customers? By value, we mean financial value. So, what financial value does your product create for your customers? Sometimes, when we ask our clients what financial value they create for their customers, clients get frustrated.
Read MoreWhat if your salespeople tell you your customers don’t see any difference between you and your competitors? Well in our experience, this might be true but it’s unlikely. How can we say that?
Read MoreMake people fall in love with your ideas. How’s that for a compelling subtitle? It made me buy the book. A small 150-page book, well designed with interesting illustrations and well written. A thoughtful and practical book with proven methods and fresh ideas.
Read MoreMachines will, in the future, replace some of most people’s working tasks, replacing repeatable, ordered tasks. But machines are weak at understanding people’s mood, and developing and building trusting relationships. So, you will need to build and leverage the soft skills of your people to give you a competitive edge. You need to build your value proposition on the human skills in your company to provide differentiation.
Read MoreThis week I needed a refill for a rollerball pen and a replacement light bulb. Two trivial tasks, or so I thought. First, armed with my dead light, I visited my local hardware store. “I want a 50W halogen Philips light like this please”.
The helpful assistant took me to the shelf, and we could only find 35W bulbs, “sorry we are out of stock”.
Read MoreImagine, you are the General Manager in a pharmaceutical company. Into your office comes a Division Manager. “You know you asked for ways to improve our relationship with United Hospitals”, she reminds you about the last management meeting. “I’ve got it. We need to innovate for them!” She says with a grin. What’s your reaction?
Read MoreIn case you missed it, the Guardian headline in November 2018, told the story in just seven words. Amazon had announced, with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, they would open a major office in New York. This office would bring 25,000 jobs paying more than US$100,000. With a deal negotiated with the two decision makers, what could go wrong?
Read MoreNext time you negotiate with a strategic customer, ask them to include more data. To understand the value of data, imagine you are a director of a radiology company with millions of digital images. A company asks to buy 100,000 images plus your diagnosis of each image. This company will use these images to train Artificial Intelligence to analyse images automatically. How much will you sell them for?
Read MoreIf I had a dollar for every time a senior manager complained about departments fighting, I would be a Millionaire. It’s rare for departments not to fight. Is all conflict bad?
Read MoreEvery year, for every person in Australia the government spends $20,000. Every year, for every person in Australia the government collects income tax of $10,000. Can you picture that?
Read MoreImagine in your last meeting your sales manager says, “What do you want to do, increase sales or lower costs?” Well, when you put it like that , you must choose? But do you need to choose? Not always! In general, when asked, do you want me to do X or Y we automatically make a choice. Why?
Read MoreAs a lecturer in change management at AGSM, I talk with many professionals from different companies and industries. A few innovative companies are working on improving their customer experience and their employee experience. These innovative companies are introducing artificial intelligence (Ai) and increasing the skills of their people, particularly their social intelligence. These companies are making courageous decisions to invest in a time of uncertainty to create a competitive edge. In an increasingly challenging business environment, sitting back and waiting to see what the future will bring is a very dangerous strategy.
Read MoreThe robots are coming for all our jobs! Read newspapers or Google “jobs replaced by robots”. When I Googled “jobs replaced by robots” I got 85 million results and 95 results posted in a month. When I Googled “jobs replaced by AI” I got 12 million results and 183 results posted in a month.
So, are any jobs safe?
Read MoreExecutives regularly complain their departments are not working together well. In some large organisations, executives spend most of the time refereeing disputes between departments. Why does this happen?
Read MoreIf your financial year finishes in December, ensure you spend your budget. In most organisations, if you don’t spend it, then you lose it. You lose it, but you still must deliver 2019 results. And 2019 starts in less than 40 days.
Read MoreIn business today people are so busy and so pushed to deliver results that, with important customers or important family members, they talk more than listen. People will rarely listen to you if they don’t feel that you have listened and understood them. Listening is important.
A few weeks ago with an IT executive, we discussed some implementation challenges with his strategy. When we finished, he said, “Thanks, I enjoyed our meeting, it was just like talking to a rubber plant.”
Read MoreAs shareholders and executives continue to demand growing profits; companies must increase revenue or increase productivity. However, increasing revenue and increasing productivity are getting harder. Can artificial intelligence (Ai) be a way to improve productivity and gain a competitive edge? There are many articles on Ai filled with acronyms or technical terms - machines, algorithms and bots. The robots are coming - are you ready?
Read MoreHave you ever needed to change a large group’s thinking or behaviour? A difficult situation, but recent research can help with this. As always, remember to stay ethical, you can use this for good and bad.
How many people in a group do you need to change the minds of others?
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