How to make a positive out of the negative with the right attitude - leadership works with a positive approach like this
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Total Executive Quotes & Tips #35 - "To live for results would be to sentence myself to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and not from them." - Hugh Prather
"To live for results would be to sentence myself to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and not from them." - Hugh Prather
Source:
Total Executive
http://www.TotalExec.com.au/te-tips/
Supporting Executives and their staff with daily quotes and tips
Currently complimentary membership to Total Executive is available for 2010/2011 Saving $495:00.
Learn about Leadership Sustainability Responsibility Technology Communication Creativity Coaching Training and Education from our Network of executives
Performing Ourselves: Why Social Media is 25% Larger than Life
I have always been drawn to acoustic performance. I love the authentic, stripped back timbre of a singer’s voice. I like the fact that you can’t hide behind the volume or be disguised by the electronic mixing. Perhaps this is why I ended up studying theatre for years. And my study of theatre took me to unexpected places. I went from the mainstream deep into the avante garde of the early 20th Century – spending time immersed in the dark, imaginative worlds of Frank Wedekind, Antonin Artaud and Heiner Muller. I emerged, later, in the powerfully vibrant theatres of Howard Barker, Penny Arcade and Robert Wilson – where words, identity and action burned the scripts, bounced off the walls and scarred or transformed not just the audiences, but the performers too.
I learned over the years the difference between intuition and imagination, between intelligence and understanding, and that was is written is not always what is performed. The gap between text and performance excited me. Why, for example, is one performer’s version better or worse than another’s? No matter the song, it can only be a matter of words, right?
But there is an intangible sense that comes with performance. It’s about purpose and intent, and the need to step beyond what we say. We need to inhabit the very limits of who we are – physically and emotionally. In the theatre, Etienne Decroux – a physical theatre practitioner – created a grammar for the bodily articulation of movement. He discovered that to appear REAL to an audience, performers had to appear 25 percent larger than they are. Yes, they needed to be larger than life.
In social media we see this everyday. A predominantly text based form, social media in various guises requires that we write ourselves into existence. It requires us to write as a performance. And those participants who appear REAL are larger than the words that they use, their ideas magnified through the lens of Twitter, Facebook or blogs. Look at any one of the individuals you are drawn to in social media and ask yourself how much of this person do you know? How much is real and how much is performance? Are they 25% larger than life?
In the social media world of micro-celebrity, there is much we can learn from “real” celebrities – from performers who have mastered the art of celebrity as performance.
Over the coming weeks I will be sharing my thoughts on various performers and what we can learn from them as social media participants – and what it means for brands and businesses wanting beginning or already engaged in their social media performance.
Original Source:Servant of Chaos
Source:
Total Executive
Currently complimentary membership to Total Executive is available for 2010/2011 Saving $495:00.
Learn about Leadership Sustainability Responsibility Technology Communication Creativity Coaching Training and Education from our network of leaders and executives
Teamwork and Collaboration
Cisco acknowledge their mistakes and their CEO John Chambers explain how they have been innovative in business - through teamwork and collaboration they have abandoned command and control management as explained in this Harvard Business Publishing interview
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param>
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param>
Source:
Total Executive
Currently complimentary membership to Total Executive is available for 2010/2011 Saving $495:00.
Learn about Leadership Sustainability Responsibility Technology Communication Creativity Coaching Training and Education from our Network of executives
Monday, June 28, 2010
Total Executive June News - How to Achieve Digital Profitability- Complimentary with your 2010/2011 TE Membership ((Tags:Leadership,Executive,Responsibility,Knowledge,Sustainability,Technology,Charity,Communication,Digital Communication,Profitability
Total Executive June News has just been released...Core Subject: How to Achieve Digital Profitability
With much more information about Leadership, Technology & Communications, Business Responsibility & Sustainability, Research and more.
Our Newsletter is Complimentary with your 2010/2011 TE Membership
If you are not a member yet - register for your complimentary membership now at: http://www.totalexec.com.au/membership-benefits/
View the newsletter here: - http://eepurl.com/FrVL
Kind regards
Grant Crossley
Director
With much more information about Leadership, Technology & Communications, Business Responsibility & Sustainability, Research and more.
Our Newsletter is Complimentary with your 2010/2011 TE Membership
If you are not a member yet - register for your complimentary membership now at: http://www.totalexec.com.au/membership-benefits/
View the newsletter here: - http://eepurl.com/FrVL
Kind regards
Grant Crossley
Director
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Grant Crossley interviews Megan Motto CEO – Consult Australia for Total Executive
“You are a successful leader if your staff/students achieve more than yourself…”
So begins the interview with Megan Motto – CEO of Consult Australia – previously known as Association of Consulting Engineers Australia
Megan is a vibrant CEO, who has developed a successful team, whilst maintaining flexibilities within her workplace.
It is also interesting to note that Megan has experience in the field of teaching/education which are now attributed to many of the qualities brought to Megan's leadership of Consult Australia.
Regarding the core methodology behind success, Megan explains, "You have to not be afraid to give kudos to staff instead of yourself... it is not about driving an ego based business."
It is also not about working harder and longer for most businesses these days which focus on services, but working smarter.
"We shouldn't be looking at when people clock in and out. Visibility management is much better replaced by encouraging outcomes through productivity and performance. It is about unveiling new things cognitively," Megan explains.
"When it comes to management, it is not for example about a manager increasing the businesses database by 10%, whilst at the same time nobody likes them and morale is low. Whilst measurable KPI's are important, managers need to have holistic performance based conversations and these are often the hardest conversations to commence."
"What we find in management are the best results come from mentoring staff, from encouraging the positive ways staff approach challenges. By discussing how improvements in behaviour and finesse are the characteristics that lead to improved performance by the individual and thereby the company they represent."
Skills can be learnt and the best method of doing this is by mentoring. Megan has a variety of mentors. A combination of both men and women - probably more men than women given where Megan works. Though Megan believes successful leadership has nothing to do with the leaders gender - she has seen both good and bad across leaders from both sexes.
The unfortunate view observed by Megan is - from experience, less than half of leaders Megan has met follow the leadership systems outlined above. Productivity in Australia is not at the high level we deserve when compared with other OECD countries. [Australia are currently #13 as per table below]
As globalisation continues across the planet, our need to maintain global competitiveness increases, so we will need to continuously work towards improving the productivity and performance of our people. This will happen to some extent through improvements in technology and communications. Though these are broadly available. The key to Australia's success is the development of the performance of our people, through rewarding leadership and management that encourages staff to perform at their best whilst developing skills.
I left Megan to head off to SBS where they had a discussion on Insight about juggling work and family responsibilities, the future of maternity/paternity leave in Australia, its impact on families, businesses and as a political issue leading up to the next election. Watching last night it was interesting to hear Megans views. As the last speaker of the night, Megan explained what happened when she returned to work after her first child was born.
Megan took maternity leave to enjoy life and quality time with her son when he was born. On return to work...
People asked, 'Where's your son?'
I said, "well he's clearly not here," looking around, "he's at home."
The second question-
'Is your Mum looking after him?'
Answer:
"No, he's at home with my husband."
The 3rd question-
'Oh, is your mother-in-law coming over to look after him?'
Isn't it funny how often people make assumptions based on their expectations of others and their line of questioning reflects those assumptions...
The general view of the level of men's capability caring for infants is clearly exposed in the questioning above.
Have you been thinking about what assumptions you have made about your staff - before having discussions and asking the right questions to find the honest reality behind their capabilities and where their skills can be enhanced to improve their performance?
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Tying offline sales from retail stores and call centers back to the online campaigns driving them ((Tags:All industries,Business Coaching,Executive Coaching,Marketing,Media,Research,Sales,analytics,attribution,call center,offline,online,phone,service
Have you ever wondered how many of the offline sales that happen in your retail chain or call centers are actually driven by online campaigns and research activity on your website? Would you like to know the true value that your online media spend is driving including offline conversions?
Total Executive provide business coaching services in this area...
The graph below shows how companies could use email receipts sent out to customers after conversion events across all channels to tie at least a small sample of offline conversions back to online campaign and research behavior. By sending out email receipts and providing incentives for customers to open and click on the emails it would be possible to trigger virtual online order confirmation pages similar to the standard online confirmation pages.
The standard cookie based campaign tracking mechanisms of any web analytics package such as Omniture and Google Analytics can then take over and do their normal job and help tie the virtual sales events back to visitors and campaigns.
Source:
A Collaboration Framework for Cross-enterprise Business Process Management
This white paper report from Institute for Informations Systems (IWi) at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) provides a great insight into:
A Collaboration Framework for Cross-Enterprise Business Process Management.
Download the white paper here
Google Apps, Cloud Computing & Collaboration for Business and Enterprise
Astadia give some good background of how to integrate Google Apps with other systems in order to maximise benefits of the digital communication, technology and collaboration benefits
Sunday, June 13, 2010
The Benefits of Google Enterprise Apps
Many small businesses have been benefiting from using Google Enterprise apps.
This short video from Ekzact TV provides an explanation of how the key benefits work...
This short video from Ekzact TV provides an explanation of how the key benefits work...
Brain Food #2 - Your Reaction Time
Lumosity have another Brain Game - this time to measure your reaction time level
To play click here
Source:
The Impact of Collaboration on Enterprise Business Performance
When you really think about it, collaboration is at the very heart of every business on the planet. It’s very rare that you find someone that is isolated from the rest of the company. Most people are a part of a team that needs to work together to achieve the best possible results; that team is a part of many teams that all need to work together to help grow an enterprise. We collaborate in pretty much everything we do at work, it’s not always efficient and it’s not always effective, but what if it were?
Frost & Sullivan along with Verizon Business and Microsoft conducted research around the impact of collaboration within the enterprise. The results of the study showed that collaboration is a key driver of company performance (the study was conducted in 2006). A global collaboration index model was developed which looked at variable factors that affect collaboration as well as several variables that affect company performance.
A culture of openness contributed 36% to collaboration quality whereas the impact of a structure of decentralization or use of collaborative technology in strategy implementation each contributed 16% to collaboration quality. Again the largest factor for collaboration quality had nothing to do with technology but with people an culture. Strategic planning and collaboration technology for strategic planning (not implementation) each contributed 6% and 5%, respectively.
The highlight of the research project was that 36% of a company’s performance was due to its collaboration index, 16& was due to strategic orientation and 7% was due to market and technological turbulence influence. Here is how collaboration affected the various aspects of business performance:
From the key numbers from the chart, collaboration impacts:
- Profitability by 29%
- Sales growth by 27%
- Profit growth by 26%
- 41% of forces driving customer satisfaction
- Productivity by 36%
- Product quality by 34%
- Product development by 30%
- Innovation by 30%
I found the report to be very interesting and definitely deserves a considerable amount of attention in the Enterprise 2.0 space. I haven’t found a report as comprehensive as this one yet (have you?). This report was released in 2006 and it would be very interesting to see how these numbers have changed over the past four years. If you ask me, this report needs to be placed in front of every key decision maker at every enterprise company. This report is a great starting point to help build the case for Enterprise 2.0 and is greatly supported by the list of over 50 Enterprise 2.0 case studies that I have found online. The question after all of this becomes, now what?
We have an analytical report supported by over 50 case studies and examples of Enterprise 2.0 implementation but this doesn’t change the fact that many collaboration challenges still exist. It’s interesting to note that the report doesn’t once mention the term ‘Enterprise 2.0′ (perhaps not coined yet) but the concept and idea behind collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 is very much in sync.
At the time this report was created, many of the popular enterprise software vendors such as Blue Kiwi, Jive, Social Text, and Spigit were either yet formed or just getting started, yet collaboration wasin full swing. Further evidence support the notion that collaboration is centered around people and not around technology. Technology can facilitate more efficient forms of collaboration and knowledge sharing but its effectiveness is an issue of deep and widespread integration and adoption. Collaboration needs to be addressed from and individual and an enterprise benefit standpoint. The enterprise benefits have been discussed extensively and include things such as reduced costs, improved innovation and ideation, and improved company performance (see chart above). However, there are also individual benefits of effective collaboration which Frost & Sullivan have clearly identified:
The challenge that I believe we are seeing today in Enterprise 2.0 is a very strong focus and push around tools instead of strategy. Collaboration is nothing new and goes back to caveman days where teams had to work together to hunt animals. Cavemen didn’t have an enterprise social software platform to discuss ideas around where and how to hunt, yet they still managed to do a fantastic job of hunting. Why then today are we so focused on platforms and tools when the real issue is around culture and people? I’ll talk more about some of the potential hurdles (as well as other topics) in the near future, but for now read and digest the report so we can discuss it.
What do you think of the report? Is there anything especially interesting that jumps out at you? Did I miss or overlook something?
I highly recommend that you read the full report on the impact of collaboration as there are several other key points of interest that are worth reading.
Source:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
