The Authenticity Behind The Voice

I had a LinkedIn post recommended to me that talked about the pilot who took the time to show their face and introduce themselves to the passengers. The result was a feeling of trust and safety for this passenger. But I think the author of the post assigns too much value to the “face” and not enough to what was behind the pilot’s approach. It was the authenticity of the approach that created meaning.

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ROI Comes From Customer Value Creation

I read a post the other day looking at the ROI (Return On Investment) in immediate payment systems (banking speak for instant payments) and one particular statement made by the author made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. In fact, the real driver may not be the ROI but just keeping […]

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Leading to Outcomes

One of the more successful strategies I have seen managers take in their organizations has been shifting their focus from managing the process to leading to outcomes. In the age of employee empowerment, one of the best ways to allow your team to feel like they have a say in the work is to allow […]

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Stop Firefighting

As traditional organizations look to address the new competition and rapidly increasing pace of change in today’s competitive marketplace I see some fascinating struggles. Traditional markets are seeing unprecedented changes in their customer’s expectations. New competitors who are chipping away at their traditional profit centres. There are even changes in the employee base with the […]

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Modifying Drucker’s Five Most Important Questions

In his book The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, Peter Drucker offers a tool for self-assessment and transformation in his “Five Most Important Questions You Can Ask”.  The questions are designed to drive action and create focus on doing the right things to drive exceptional performance within your organization, only […]

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Interesting Small Business Statistics

While these statistics aren’t particularly new (they come from a 2005 Industry Canada report) I came across them this week while working on a white paper and I think they bear some brief discussion here. In Canada, 94.6% of businesses by number are ‘small’ meaning that they have less than 50 employees.  The actual number startled me […]

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Value is in the Eye of the Beholder

I’ve had some great conversations with some really smart people in the past couple of months since I got started working with small businesses and new Entrepreneurs in this capacity.  There is one common theme that seems to be emerging though as I work particularly with young technology entrepreneurs: unclear value. Perhaps a good way to […]

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What is your Unique Value Proposition? (UVP)

I was sitting with one of my trusted network centers of influence on Friday discussing opportunities and business and she asked me what should have been a simple question to try to identify any connections she could make for me: “What is your unique value proposition?  What is it that you do that makes you […]