The Employee Vs. the Organization
-Sounds like some sort of a media driven grudge match between two heavyweight prize fighters? It is – based in large measure on my own challenging experience working for 15 companies over the course of 30 years – but as an HR Director, I’m also telling this story from thousands of varying perspectives, through the eyes of my customers (the employees whom I represented). What I’m about to talk about is the recipe for survival – for both the employee and their often emotionally and operationally dysfunctional organisations. I’m going to be brutally honest and scrape down into root cause issues,…
You are Unique, but not Special
-In my article, “Build Organizational Capacity and Capability – For Free”, I listed several root-causes for training and education programs reaching a “stall speed” and a detailed approach for avoiding it. Among the root-causes listed were; time, expense, work/learning balance, scalability, retention rate, and atrophy. But there is considerable risk to the program even prior to its launch, and that involves the creation of a proper curriculum and learning environment. “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien,” meaning, “The best is the enemy of the good.” – Voltaire Case Study; I want to protect the identities of the company and those…
The Immeasurable value of Intellectual Capital
-Your most valuable business asset may not be the raw materials, cash reserves, or even the technology found within your company. It’s the knowledge of the people on your team. Yet a good number of executives overlook the value of this collective knowledge, commonly called Intellectual Capital. Case in point: Several years ago, I attended a meeting with executives and managers from one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world. One of the top executives stood before the large crowd and exclaimed that their most valuable asset was their brand recognition. At that point, I knew this company was…
The way for reaching the Strategic Capability that empowers your business
-The increasing complexity and dynamism that the markets have today, but especially those where organizations operate using Information and Communication Technologies as the core of the business, as well as the resulting uncertainty thereof, suggests that the Strategic Development in those Organizations should be based on the usage of traditional processes as well as other emergent strategies that arise from internal processes and daily activities. There is no doubt that technological progress is rendering the possibility to deliver new services to customers. But the value added by this technological progress depends on the way of providing them and this in…
Build Organizational Capacity and Capability – For Free
-I was coaching one of the national oil companies in the Middle East, offering mentorship to the director of their operational excellence program. He was frustrated because he had invested considerable funds building a team of sixty Lean Six Sigma Black Belts over a nine-month period, and they had not yet worked on—much less completed—any project nor had they realized any benefit to the company. Even worse, while these newly-minted Black Belts were sitting idle without the opportunity to use their new-found skillsets, some became frustrated themselves and left the company—taking the company’s investment with them. Never mind the fact…
Productivity Management: An Essential Capability for Maximizing the Value of Operational Excellence
-Operational Excellence (OpEx) is a term that embodies many things that CEOs seek to achieve, such as consistent strategy execution, profitable growth and sustainable cost reduction. While there are many definitions of the term, most would agree that it entails focusing on customers, cross functional execution and consistent delivery of outcomes that create value for customers and shareholders. Whatever label is applied to these aspirations, organizations frequently fall short of fully achieving them. Especially in global organizations that exhibit the complexity characteristics shown below in Exhibit 1. Exhibit 1: Complexity Characteristics – As the number of complexity characteristics increase, Operational…
