#mindspark Many times, the best creative thinking comes from setbacks and obstacles. You don’t chose your friends. They chose you. Keeping up appearances is never sustainable. So don’t follow that tired, commonly given advice “surround yourself with people better than you.” The fact is, you won’t find them. Even if you get into their circles, they will reject you. People need folks who belong to their ranks and levels. The worst punishment you can mete on yourself is trying to fit in a class that you do not belong. Britons have a word for it: keeping up appearances. So, don’t…

As part of the staff satisfaction survey, we included a question, what would make you leave your current position? Surprisingly, the answer was not about money. Many employees would leave for other reasons. Below are some of the major reasons stated: Failure to value the contribution of the employee. Many staff hate it when the employer or their direct supervisor fails to value the contribution they make. This means effective ongoing collaboration and communication between employees and their direct reports would make work more satisfying. Companies must put in place collaborative tools to deepen both vertical and cross-sectional communication. Having…

Figure 1; Misaligned pillars Take a moment to study figure 1. What can you determine from the figures? Ask any leader or manager, why strategy execution fails, and the responses are varied. Many blame a poor culture and weak performance management mechanisms. Before you consider fixing the monster called “culture” and an automated performance management system, first fix the structure to strategy alignment. Failure to do so affects effective strategy execution difficult. If the structure is not reviewed to align with the new strategic priorities, execution will unravel. In Figure A, the house is stable because the pillars are properly…

A typical internal audit project has six phases – planning, inception meeting, fieldwork or data collection, exit meeting, reporting, and follow up. Working as an Internal Auditor in Nile Bank sometime in 2002, we used to spend a lot of time in planning – when you have several audit areas to review, what informs your priority list? Why audit one area and not the other? The answer was found in risk-based auditing. And so, internal audit has to work with other experts like risk management department to review their risk management processes and assess whether to rely on their risk…

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  I have been procrastinating about taking the family car for repair specifically to change the brake pads, as they had started making that annoying noise while driving on a steep slope. I know from experience that never buy car spare parts or any item for that matter in Kampala, without first understanding the price range. You may end up paying dearly for ignorance. A week ago, I visited about three Garages and asked the price for the four brake pads. They told me it costs about Ugx. 70,000 a pair for the front tires and between Ugx. 70,000 to…