Everyone yearns for words of affirmation. We all need to be appreciated and comforted regardless of our positions. Once in a while, even the most successful chief executive or politician, will be challenged and feel threatened. The power of the inner circle plays a key role in situations like these. You need people to give you confidence that the plans are working, only that results are just delaying. But how do you stay positive amid a pandemic that continues to cause unprecedented suffering globally? 2020 has been a year of a big health challenge. Even the tech companies making tremendous…
Practical application of data analytics
As Mr. Strategy, I get paid for helping clients think critically about their business value creation processes for profitable and sustainable business models. It takes a brilliant prospect to realize that they need help. You cannot have all the answers internally. And that is how we get called in. As strategy experts, we love data. Data analytics provides the context of the business. One of the questions which data analytics answers is what did the old or current strategy achieve? Someone could give you a 50-page document trying to answer that question. However, with data, you need not more than…
Become a data literate professional
One of the easiest ways to test any auditor’s or consultant’s skills, is to overwhelm them with massive amounts of data. Once I was leading an investigation team in a highly populated African country at a utility company, with over 12m customers. Our firm had been hired to examine the possible mispricing since new connections were increasing without a corresponding increase in revenue. The issue was to examine the possible causes of increasing new customer acquisitions against stagnating revenues, despite the absence of any promotions or discounts. Many times, the client also wants to know who is responsible and how…
Automate your risk management processes
How would you answer the following questions? What keeps your leadership up at night? Do you experience challenges with strategy execution, risk management, and staff or strategy meetings? What is the risk to you? Who is responsible for risk identification, assessment, analysis, reporting, and on-going monitoring? Do you keep your risk register in MS Excel? How often do you update your risk register? How much does performance management processes cost your business? How do you know if your team’s everyday work is linked to the overall corporate strategy? Are your team’s everyday actions strategically aligned? Do you (or your team)…
Tips to be a great conversationist with leaders
It is that time of the year of more talk and less action. The politicians are competing in giving promises. The ear of a desperate man (and woman) will accept anything that gives hope. When you hear the same thing several times, you end up believing it! Many politicians know this. As a consultant, we are trained to talk. I used to think that when you get face time with the customer, you impress them by talking much to unleash your intellectual firepower. That is the wrong approach. To become a great conversationist you need to master the art of…
Make your board more effective with this premium board template
The effectiveness of the board depends on the quality of the reports and papers the executive team prepares against which the board discussed are based. Yet, many leaders lack the skill to summarize lots of information into easy to read formats for a business executive. In the end, board members receive lots of information that is not easy to read thereby making the role more cumbersome and less interesting. As I have written in the past, the role of the Board Chairman is to manage the board to provide effective support to the executive team through the Chief Executive. The…
