All chief executive officers will eventually leave. But why do boards fail to adequately plan for the CEO succession? We have seen it in politics, the skill of planning for the successor seems to be the last item on the to-do-list of most board agendas, which they keep moving to the next meeting. The result is trial and error when the need for a new CEO arises. As part of business continuity and disaster recovery, we usually conduct business impact analysis (BIA) on the institution’s mission-critical capabilities that support key processes. One of such capabilities is people – staff skills,…

What is nepotism? Nepotism is biased favouritism to relatives and friends for the sake of edging off others unfairly. This happens when offering positions and opportunities of preference including appointment to positions, jobs, business, religion and politics. Nepotism is favouritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. The word nepotism is from the Latin word ‘nepos’ which means nephew. Nepotism has been condemned and criticized as unwise and evil. If a person is chosen for a job just because is loved or liked him, he/she will lead everyone to endless futilities. Nepotism is a common accusation in politics when the relative of a powerful figure ascends…

One of the commonly misused words in strategy is “leveraging technology” to win. Many leaders use it to refer to technology use across the board as a strategy to win. But if everyone is leveraging technology in some way or another in their business, how then can “leveraging technology” be a competitive strategy? The great god of Strategy, Michael Porter, said it precisely, “operational effectiveness” is not a strategy. Continuous improvement or doing things better and better is not a strategy. Lowering costs is not a strategy. Increasing productivity is not a strategy. A strategy is about making choices on…

? What is the cause? ☝ We always hear of people who have a stroke after a fall in the bath. ? Why have we not heard of falling elsewhere? ? When I took part in a healthy lifestyle course, a National Sports Council Professor, who also participated in the course, advised that: ? the head should not be washed first in the process of taking a bath (even washing of the hair). ? other parts of the body should be cleaned first. ? This is because when the head is wet and cold, blood will flow to the head…

“To achieve efficiency, this year, the idea of ‘tweaking your budget’ need not happen”. “Re-write it”! We advised. The intention was to help our client achieve organizational fitness. The traditional approach of horizontal extrapolation of numbers cannot work. No company had expected and budgeted for a pandemic. It happened as a shock and has turned the world upside down across all industries. Continued from part 2. If you are to win, you must throw the old strategy out of the window. And get back to the drawing table. Re-write the strategy. And now more than before, you cannot just go…

What about the number of years the business has been in existence? No. Not at all. Historical pre-existence does not necessarily provide immunity to the troubles caused by hard times. The corporate graveyard is full of dead companies that failed to respond to the modern VUCAP – volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and pandemic times. Many others are on their sickbed. Continued from part 1. Then what matters? It is the behaviours of business leaders and managers that matter the most! It is about the response and recovery decisions taken by business leaders during and after the hard times have struck.…