We manage by absorbing friction – and building up heat!

When I did my book launch at the Ritz this week, (Come on allow me to bask in glory for a while) .  When I spoke I suggested that the way we manage is designed to absorb friction.  Let me explain.

The challenge of converting strategy into performance is neatly summed up by one of [...]

Managing organisations in the same ways birds manage to fly together

Treat this as an off the wall, whimsical post – with a serious intent….

One thing that we all see far too much of –  Management.

One problem with many organisations is that we spend too much time managing, we create too many rules and practices and processes for management, in fact we create entire [...]

Balanced Scorecards and NLP: How do they work together?

I do not normally talk about the NLP side of what I do, but a recent,  unusual, posting on an NLP forum in LinkedIn asking about Strategy, Balanced Scorecards and NLP has prompted me to come out on the closet on this topic.  NLP Stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming and is the study of how people think and [...]

Amazon have already sold out and are ordering new copies

A friend ordered a copy of my latest book, “Strategy Mapping for learning organizations” from Amazon earlier this week and discovered there were only two left.   Today I checked and there are on back order.

So a big thank you to all who are buying my book.  Presumably you also want agility in your [...]

Strategy Mapping is now available as an eBook

My publishers tell me that Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations is now available as an ebook.

If you are looking for an electronic version of my Book about strategy maps, balanced scorecards for agile organisations and how to design, implement and use them effectively, then there are several links available.

UK versions (priced in pounds) are available [...]

Strategy Mapping for Learning Organizations is now available

It’s official folks.  You can now order and get copies of my guide to developing, implementing and using Strategy Maps to create effective, agile, strategic balanced scorecards.

I give away a lot in this book. I recently met a colleague over dinner and we discussed Balanced scorecard design for over 2 hours.  Almost everything we talked about I could [...]

Strategy Mapping, now has a Foreword by David Norton

I cannot tell you how chuffed I am.  I will admit I even did a little dance the other day.  Why you might ask?

Well, my new book, “Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations” is due out in December 2011, and I am delighted, honoured and humbled that David Norton himself, has written a Foreword for [...]

What we want is strategic agility and speed: What stops us and helps us?

Back in the dot.com boom around 2000 I was Chief Technology Officer of a start-up that changed direction 180 degrees in 6 months.

Within the first six months we had speed: we had our solution up and running to demonstrate a net-market for trading materials between cable manufacturers and their suppliers.  (The solution cost around [...]

New models of customer interaction & engagement

We are seeing new business models emerge:  Can our approach to managing strategy and performance accommodate them?

The traditional models of customer intimacy, differentiation, and markets being “talked at” by companies, are being replaced.  (See Grant Leboff, Sticky marketing)  Social media and other internet technology means that the conversations amongst customers have much wider credibility.  [...]

Our capacity to manage, dictates our ability to improve the world.

Being a manager rarely gets the credit it deserves.  Flicking through Gary Hamel’s blog on Management 2.0 for Wall Street Journal, I came across this excellent quote

“Our capacity to improve the state of the world is ultimately bounded by our capacity to manage.”

If we want to change the world then our ability to [...]