Employee engagement is essential to keep staff motivated, increase business results and enhance staff retention. When I worked for a banking corporation many years ago, I attempted to spend time with each of the individuals who reported to me, primarily to get to know them better and discover their passions, giftedness and unique characteristics. I…
In my travels and subsequent visits to simply many hundreds of companies, I have been surprised at how many companies have departments that don’t operate with the belief that they add real value to company profitability. They perhaps understand that they are necessary and that they have a function to perform, but don’t link this…
During the past year or so, I have been working with a number of companies on enhancing performance, and subsequently results, through refocusing these business entities on employee engagement and quality leadership processes. Creativity and strategic thinking has not just been left to senior management as their responsibility, but the need for thinking strategically has…
One of my favourite day trips, when in “relax mode”, is to take a trip to the Cape Town Waterfront in South Africa – the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront is set in Cape Town’s working harbour, with beautiful Table Mountain as the backdrop to this sprawling shopping mall area, yacht basin, hotels and a hive…
On a trip to Asia, I had the opportunity of exploring a densely populated Bamboo forest – a surreal experience, where the wind causes the bamboo to creak and groan as the tall plants rub against each other. In the Asian humidity and with the right soil conditions, these monsters grow into giants alongside each…
During one of many visits to the beautiful island-country of Madagascar, between workshops in Antananarivo for government employees, I managed to squeeze in a few sight-seeing hours and tour the city. My guide took me to see many varieties of lemurs, government buildings that harked back to North Korean architecture and to some of the…
I love art – sketching, drawing or painting. I don’t spend enough time practising, but when I get a moment to relax, I retrieve the pad, eraser, pencil and the watercolours. I find a quiet spot, shake off the accumulated stress from the week’s events and begin planning the next piece. On a particular Sunday…
Many years ago, a certain motor vehicle manufacturer in South Africa had an employee who was responsible for the door assembly area on the production line. He was good at his job, led his team well and contributed admirably to the finished product. At times, he made improvement and other creative suggestions to enhance process,…
Some time ago, I had fifteen regional sales people from a well-known international software company attend a workshop that I was facilitating, all of whom complained about overfull inboxes and the amount of mail they received on a daily basis. I happened to ask how big their problem was and they replied unanimously: “Between 180…
A couple of years ago, I did development work for the regional leadership team of a large milling and baking company, located in the northern part of South Africa. During the workshop, we looked at “stretch” for the business, attempting to find possible solutions to grow the business and bring it up to near full…
A colleague of mine shared a personal story of her son, when still very young in junior school, playing rugby for the first time. He had gone to practice during the week and came home beaming about his experiences – running with the ball, tackling others who had the ball, kicking and so on. My…
I have a whistle that has four notes, obtained in Chattanooga in the United States of America. There is nothing particularly special about these four different notes and they are almost weak-sounding, even when you blow on them individually with some force. When you blow them together, however, they produce the sound of the steam…
