Consulting is a great business. It’s fun, it’s profitable, and it helps people. Evidently, many people agree with me, because they set up small consulting companies. I’ve worked for a good many of them over the years, either as an… Read More ›
Business Life
Life in the office, incidents in business, the process of work
How to frustrate customers and lose business
It took me 4 hours to book a taxi this morning. Really? Yes. The company concerned is a well-known private hire company in London, not some small start-up. I was using their website to book a taxi for tomorrow. It… Read More ›
Change management of oldies
I am getting older. I’ve started to realise why older people might resist change. It’s not because older folk are arrogant, or think they know better, or because they are lazy or set in their ways. This is what I… Read More ›
Consultancy companies, phase transitions
Here’s a graph of what happens when you heat ice. At first it’s all fine. You heat it up, and the temperature rises, as shown on the graph, A to B. Then it goes through a phase change. You keep on… Read More ›
Why don’t people just do as I say?
“If I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a thousand times: do NOT leave your damp sports kit on top of the washing machine!” This happens in business. We seem constantly to be re-issuing and re-inforcing the same set of… Read More ›
Seven reasons why people ask questions – and only one of them is because they want to know the answer
In business, we expend a lot of energy answering questions. Much of the time, this energy is wasted. The person who asks the question is not necessarily interested in the answer. Often, they simply want to know is that there… Read More ›
Prepare for conversation
If you have an important business meeting coming up, how are you preparing? The chances are that you are preparing a presentation. However, alongside the presentation, if we are to make progress, there must be conversation. How are you preparing… Read More ›
Disagreement Success
Many conflicts cannot be resolved. Therefore, to avoid disappearing into violence and chaos, we are going to have to live with difference and disagreement. We can disagree well, or we can disagree badly. It is a good idea to cultivate… Read More ›
We use mobile phones in meetings now
There has been a change in social convention. It happened in the last 3-6 months where I live and work, perhaps it’s already happened where you are, or perhaps it’s coming. We use mobile phones in meetings now. We used… Read More ›
Out there
I just Googled myself. In this case, I have some sales visits coming up, and I had assiduously searched the names of all the other people. Then I thought: what will they get if they search me? An article in Google… Read More ›
Making Change Happen 