commercial blog of paul curtis, the business growth architect
10 November 2010 Leave a comment
How to get others to make beautiful music together when you can’t play all the instruments yourself? It’s a challenge that faces every business owner, director and manager; which many claim to be impossible. Yet orchestra conductors have been doing it successfully for centuries. Maybe it’s worth examining how?
6 October 2010 Leave a comment
Emerging directors have an important role to play. They need to show good judgement, balance, diplomacy, business experience and skills, and an understanding of basic motivation psychology. But above all, they need to show exceptional skill in the five key components outlined by Daniel Goleman in Emotional Intelligence, as reported in Company Director, Aug 201o, pp 52-53. Read ManagerToDirector.
15 August 2010 Leave a comment
“Practical wisdom is about doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, for the right reasons. It’s not something you learn by studying or thinking, but by doing.” So says US Psychologist Barry Schwartz as reported in HR Monthly magazine, February 2010, pp 10-13.
Barry’s views are based on the teachings of the famous philosopher Aristotle, who was “very interested in how craftsmen – woodworkers for example – solved unique everyday problems by developing rules of thumb, making mistakes, and correcting their approaches to problems based on previous mistakes. He thought this example showed how to lead other people and how to be good marital partners, be good parents, teachers and so on.”
This article explains a lot of why I chose the name ‘bizdom‘ for this blog. And how I go about improving business performance.
Read on to discover how practical wisdom can be readily and beneficially applied in business and in other spheres.
15 August 2010 Leave a comment
So many ingredients. So many combinations. So many intentions. So many outcomes … and not all of them good!
A dose of job design. 2 days of induction (but it says ‘onboarding’ on the package?). A spot of mentoring. Performance management by the boss … when they can fit it in. An executive coach … or 3? An external course. Networking event. eLearning program. A team building workshop thrown in for good measure. And a dash of …
And let’s not forget ‘Leadership Development’. Or are they born, not made?
Read on to find out about the 70/20/10 rule that is gaining popularity as a guideline, as well as current trends in corporate learning as reported in HR Leader magazine, 8 June 2010, pp 22-23.
15 August 2010 2 Comments
An 18 minute video clip espousing a simple but insightful model for understanding leadership based on the application of biology (not just psychology) which has profound implications for how you run your business, provided you take the time to contemplate the far reaching implications and consider the changes it suggests you would make to everything including the practices of directorship, management, marketing, sales, service and beyond.
21 July 2010 Leave a comment
As reported by Neil Tweedie of the Telegraph Group in London earlier this year, science is again proving what we already know, which is that numerous distractions of the internet are invading our personal and work lives in many unhelpful ways, creating a worsening situation that requires careful attention by business owners and leaders. Please rate and comment on the multi-tasking distractions article and consider attending our forthcoming training day for owners/directors/managers entitled ‘Productivity Breakthrough – time is money‘ where we teach proven methods to restore productivity without dismissing the benefits of modern technology. (If you book on the event dated 25 August 2010 you can use a Special Ticket with code ECWIINR2WA to secure a government funded 90% discount on this training ie $49.50 down from $495.)
29 June 2010 3 Comments
Enterprise Connect recently announced the winners of the latest round of WIIN grants to assist SMEs to be more innovative, efficient, productive and competitive. Out of 360 applications Australiawide, 61 grants were awarded, and Edensilk aka bizdom were the recipients of 2 grants worth a total of $100,000. These grants are being used to sponsor a series of 1-day workshops from Jul-Nov 2010 for ambitious owners, directors and managers of SMEs in the Perth metro area who may also be eligible for additional support and funding from Enterprise Connect. If you’d like to be on the invitation list for some of these workshops and related support initiatives, make sure you’re on my database by completing my contact form or send me an email to express your interest.
29 November 2009 Leave a comment
Are you unconsciously sabotaging your own success? We can’t help it, according to Daniel Kahneman, a clinical psychologist who won the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, as reported in MyBusiness October 2003, p31.
But if you can learn to manage your intuitions, and your inherent ‘fear of loss’, you obtain a huge competitive advantage in any market place, as below:
[ Here's the deal: toss a coin. Heads, you win $1500; tails you lose $1000. Would you take the chance?
Speaking in Sydney in July 2003, Daniel Kahneman said that most people wouldn’t take the chance, even with repeated opportunities.
And in a related question … would you like to be more imaginative in your choice of investments, or more bold in your business development initiatives, but you can’t bear the thought of making losses? If so, you’re not alone. Read more of this post
28 November 2009 Leave a comment
Leaders applaud coaching but fail to quantify results, according to an article in BRW magazine (November 26 to December 2, 2009, p44) as below:
[Leadership coaching has many admirers but it will remain a cottage industry unless it adopts more rigourous standards, consulting firm Rights Management says. Coaching is generally well-regarded but it's place in business is limited by the lack of a proven methodology for measuring its return on investment or effectiveness, the firm's regional general manager, Bridget Beattie says. "Moves are underway to establish the true profession of coaching, endorse a set of academic fundamentals and establish accreditation guidelines - but the industry is not there yet," she says. A survey of human resources professionals found there was limited tracking of effectiveness either before or after coaching. Among those who did track its effectiveness, the emphasis was on measuring leader satisfaction rather than business outcomes. "Of course, the impact on individuals is important, but to really stack up, coaching needs to translate into business outcomes such as increasing market share, revenues and profits," Beattie says.]
I personally will not accept any coaching engagement without first defining and agreeing an answer to the question ‘what will success look like?’
Your thoughts on the matter?
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