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Points of Pain

• Lack of clear direction
• Poor leadership
• Silos, infighting and departmental politics
• Over worked or Too busy
• Static or declining markets and sales
• Poor client retention or profitability
• Poor organisational effectiveness - structure and process
• Poor organisational effectiveness - people, groups
• Lack of energy, enthusiasm, and buzz
• High costs, cannot measure performance
• Poor information management.

DO YOU EXPERIENCE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING PAIN POINTS?

Lack of clear direction- Lack of a clear direction is one of the most debilitating conditions for any organisation. People work hard, but they are pulling against each other, often duplicating effort and canceling out results. Things that should take a short time seem to take forever and sometimes are never completed because people give up in frustration. Customers become confused, angry and often leave. The solution is to achieve clarity of vision and mission, effectively aligning your organisation with your markets and key stakeholders, understanding your strengths and value drivers, by knowing your key strategies.

Poor leadership - As Napoleon said: "There are no bad soldiers under a good general." So there are no bad employees under an irresistible leader. Many managers don't understand themselves or how to deal with other people effectively so they disempower people, confuse them and cover their weaknesses by putting other down. In the process they suck energy out of the workplace and cause those with options to leave the organisation. The solution is to work with managers over a period of time, long enough to change their behaviours and habits.

Silos, infighting and departmental politics - Silos lead people to focus inward and away from the client, they are far more costing than most Chief Executives realise. They slow the organisation. They stop cooperation. They drive the best people out of the organisation. The solution is sometimes structural but more often the silos are silos in thinking. Once people understand how to work in more effective ways, silos breakdown and cooperation increases dramatically.

Over worked or Too busy - Research shows that a few (only about 5% of the people), are extremely busy, sometimes frantically busy. These are the Tops (senior managers). They cope with the urgent, but keep putting off the truly important. The solution is likely be either helping managers release the untapped energy within the remaining 95% of their people, so they can start working on the business rather than in the business; or clarifying what really matters so everyone can pull together.

Static or declining markets and sales - The solution is to determine whether your market is mature or declining, improve the profitability of your current markets, identify and develop new markets.

Poor client retention or profitability - The solution is to understand who your profitable clients are, understand what is important to them, erfine your value proposition, deliver this effectively.

Poor organisational effectiveness - structure and process - The solution is to align your structure, processes, delivery options and culture to your chosen Value Proposition.

Lack of energy, enthusiasm, and buzz - Some organisations are buzzing. Others are dead. Mostly the difference is due to the senior and middle management and some remarkably simple things they do (or don't do). The solution is to develop senior and middle management. The development of senior managers is often catered for by development courses like the Leadership Development Centre. Middle managers are largely forgotten about. Many middle managers have been promoted into their management roles without proper training. They may have been good analysts, policy people or whatever but they may not know much about managing people.

Poor organisational effectiveness - people, groups - The solution is to ensure your organisation's mission is supported by the right people with the right attributes, augmented this with the right culture, reward systems, belief systems, and management style, and reinforce with effective knowledge management.

High costs, cannot measure performance - Ensure that your measurement systems are appropriately designed and aligned so as to support and promote the right behaviour within your organisation.

Poor information management - Ensure that your information management systems fully support your organisational processes.

Key words: Leadership, leadership development, leadership management, leadership training, leadership program, leadership skills, strategy, strategies, business strategy, business strategies, strategy management, strategic management, strategy development, implementation.