Thoroughly review your company’s competencies and learn how much support they have from top management Determine your own competency ‘career path’ in the company Do a ‘reality test’ on yourself Seek others’ perspective on your efforts Seek your boss’s support for your career development efforts Determine the best way to acquire new skills[i] [i] …
Inspiring hard work, loyalty, new ideas, and creativity in downsized or transformed organizations is the most compelling challenge for companies today. The problem is that most companies are awful at collecting market and customer information and then commercializing internal knowledge. How bad? The preeminent management expert, Peter Drucker, said that “approximately 90% or more of …
Arie de Geus, a management strategist, once said “the ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.” Companies and Brand U individuals know this. Information and knowledge add value. Knowledge allows the smartest organization to deliver products and services faster and better than its competitors. Applied knowledge and learning …
David H. Smith, head of knowledge development at Unilever, offers the following symptoms of poor brainpower management: You repeat problems Work gets duplicated Customer relations are strained Good ideas don’t get shared You have to compete on price You can’t keep up with market leaders You’re dependent on key individuals You’re slow to launch new …
Managing, organizing, and commercializing knowledge is the hot area of competitiveness. Land, labor, capital, and bricks/mortar were considered the economic ingredients for creating wealth. In our digital world, Brand U ideas and knowledge dominate the value adding product design, process improvement, and project completion mix. Knowledge work includes every organizational activity from machine maintenance, customer …
The secret of business success is not who you know. It’s what you know. The Wall Street Journal Advertisement The future of work consists of learning a living. Marshall McLuhan, Futurist If our people develop faster than a competitor’s people, then they’re worth more. James M. Biggar, CEO, Nestle Enterprises Your work should be an …
Many of us chose careers and work largely based on assumptions that have changed dramatically over the last several years. That’s what Working It is all about. While organizational paternalism and employee entitlement attitudes may still exist in some companies, we’re moving from organizational command-and-control to the Brand U world of self managed teams, self-directed …
Do you work in a projectized organization? Do you believe that you’ll project manage your work life? Do you volunteer or are selected for highly visible new projects? Why or why not are you selected? Are you adaptable to assume project manager/leader/coach roles? Do you believe that Brand U project managers will replace middle managers? …
Provide peace of mind Solve unusual problems Provide third party opinion Provide objectivity and independence Assist in organizational change Supplement in-house services Offer out-of-box thinking/doing Justify decisions Provide political cover
What’s a consultant? ‘Someone who takes your watch to tell you the time.’ Or, ‘someone 50 miles from home.’ We’ve all heard these jokes. The reality is there are many more Brand U’s telling time and being more than 50 miles from home working as consultants. Why are there these jokes? Most consulting is project …