Have you ever noticed how Air New Zealand, once we’re all crammed into the cabin and ready to go, takes great delight in telling us about the various awards they’ve won recently? But business is about outcomes, not awards. I refer to this because I find...
People often ask me about their role as a leader. I had the same problem answering this one for many years. I couldn’t, at first, come up with an appropriate response. The more that people asked me, the more I thought about it, and the more I was compelled to develop...
Today, the debate about Auckland’s traffic woes took another step with Auckland Transport announcing their new 10-year budget. It seems heavy on improving our roads, which it is notable for a couple of reasons. I’m not referring to the $10 billion capital cost. I get...
Today I want to talk about what I call the “most important question in business”. That question goes like this – “what are you trying to achieve”. It probably sounds obvious, but based on my experiences over the years, most business owners, senior ex-ecutives, middle...
Hi I’m BC – and welcome to my blog for business. During my executive career, I learned about management and leadership as I went along. I didn’t have the luxury of the internet as my teacher. Sure, I read books and listened to audio recordings of business speakers and...
It is the biggest and busiest week of your life. The week when your first child is born. Twenty years ago I had that moment, except that my busiest week happened threefold. Firstly we finished the renovations on the house just in time for baby to arrive. Secondly, my...
Yesterday my daughter started her first real job. She’s 21 and is in the final throes of her business degree. For as long as I can remember, all she’s ever wanted to do is work in advertising. She’s majoring in Advertising and Marketing. She’s done ok. She’s...
Earlier this month I spent some time with a team of senior Sales Executives and their Sales Managers. The purpose of the session was this: they had been losing big ‘new business’ pitches, so we decided to review the business development process from brief to pitch. ...
No one is more pleased than me to see the developing debate about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of what has become known as the annual performance review and ranking process. Most recently market heavyweights such as Accenture, Deloittes and Microsoft are...
I remember an old wise crack that went like this: Question: “What’s the biggest change in accounting in the last 40 years?” Answer: “Air conditioning.” Whilst I think that’s unfair, it illustrates a point that the profession does have challenges aplenty.As the...
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