If you want to see my professional career profile I suggest that you visit my LinkedIn page
Outside of work I am a walker, runner, avid reader, active church member, red wine drinker, guitar strummer, family man, team player, admirer of great coffee & sunny days (with clouds), theatre going and chocolate eating.
A charity trustee, consultant, business mentor, sounding board, facilitator and analyst with a real passion for customers and taking an outside-in perspective. In consulting, I bring a commercial focus, and strong experience of strategic and organisational change, customer management, routes to market and innovation. I also bring a heart for good, ethicalpractices and making the world a better place.
What I do
Consultant, facilitator, coach, author, speaker, Non-Exec, analyst, and sounding board.
I work with individuals and organisations – from training (change, leading with others, facilitation) to facilitating strategy and decisions. I have lead groups through market and strategic planning exercises, facilitated meetings for management teams, provided strategic analyses and a structure to organisational challenges and problems.
I have worked with organisations of all types but most recently with charities and churches.
If you think I might be able to help – get in touch for a discussion.
Is there a theme to this blog site?
I guess on the professional side there is and this bleeds into my personal reflections. I have been a consultant for well over 30 years and a consulting leader for many of these.
This has been a privilege. I enjoy being a consultant and I am good at it.
It has also been a great opportunity to see and work alongside literally dozens of leaders in organisations as they face and plan for significant changes of direction, organisation or performance – sometimes in the face of threat, sometimes at the door of opportunity and mostly both!
What has always fascinated, saddened and amazed me in equal measure is sometimes how tough it can be for leaders to take their people through the process of change, from its recognition and analysis through its implementation and benefits realisation. I know this myself in my own leadership experience.
Organisations are social entities that depend on people to perform effectively… carelessness, hubris, poor analysis, mistaken assumptions, badly handled important people, no real consultation or involvement, poor senior teamwork and decisions etc…. any and all of these can be fatal to good outcomes, losing people and a strategy. Yet all too common in all types of organisation.
Better thinking, a sound process and real care for the right outcome for both the organisation and the people in it and that it serves are critical. For strategic shifts, major changes, radical transformation, the outcomes depend critically on many key people and their genuine commitment – to enable real learning and a solid pathway to a better future.
Wouldn’t it be great to see :
- teams strengthened not damaged
- smarter, better and more sustained outcomes
- more effective delivery of the purpose of the organisation
- less collateral damage
- momentum enhanced not dissipated
At the heart of this are better decisions – analytically and behaviourally. Decisions must be well chosen, made in a timely way and generate the commitment across the team for an effective and speedy implementation. This is of strategic significance:
- 80% of the difference in corporate performance is about being in the right place not ‘winning share’(1) – it is about strategic shifts
- The application of shareholder value tools has not improved corporate ROI’s for leading businesses(2) – the grind of metrics management has not achieved superior outcomes
- A cohesive team produces better performance outcomes(3) – teams deliver superior outcomes
1 – The granularity of growth by Baghai, Smit and Viguerie McKinsey Quarterly 2007 No 2
2 – The age of customer capitalism by Roger Martin HBR January 2010
3 – Cohesion and performance in sport: A meta-analysis by Carron, Colman and Wheeler, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology 2002[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]