In many companies, it is a management mantra to “take out cost”. What does it actually mean to “take out cost”? A great example is found here in a recent story about Costco. Some things to think about: “Taking out cost” does not mean indiscriminately slashing headcount or some vague blather about leadership. It means systematically evaluating…
Interesting quote in Chief Learning Officer magazine article about the importance of employee engagement. "You end up with solutions that sometimes are not designed to work in the real world because no one working the frontline jobs was asked about whether this would work or not," Kanazawa said. "So you have a lack of engagement,…
I recently declined to pursue two opportunities that emerged over the past several weeks. Both would represent near term revenue. Yet I said no. Why? Why? Because they really do not fit with my strategy and business model. The challenge is that they are close enough to seem like they fit, but they really don’t….
After years of working with clients in various organizational environments, I’ve realized that in most organizations there is a big question lurking. It is the elephant in the room. These elephants exist regardless of how well the organization is performing, but they are definitely present if there are issues with underperformance. As the leader, it…
How many times have you bought an item from a store, only to bring it home and discover that "batteries are not included" or "some assembly required?" I was working with a client last week when the topic of "solutions" came up. The issue was how to move from selling hardware, software, and services as…
