#148 – HOW TO MAKE AUDIT MANAGEMENT EFFECTIVE – GREG CARROLL

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GregCarrollEffectiveness is the holy grail of Compliance Management.  Whether regulatory or ERM, ensuring business is conducted as intended is the base requirement to optimising your organization’s performance.

Let’s face it, business spends its money where it will deliver the best return, i.e. to shareholders, so the key to increasing the compliance budget is to measure compliance as a factor of performance not as a safety net. Continue reading

#145 – MEETING REQUIREMENTS, EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS AND HAPPINESS – MALCOLM PEART

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Malcom Peart pixHow often do we hear or read that some organization or other purports to aim to exceed their Clients’ expectations? Are such statements mere puffery and sales pitch by some top-line grabbing salesman or are they genuine goals in line with the mantra of continuous improvement? And if we exceed somebody’s expectations are they happy about it? Continue reading

#142 – AMAZON’S SECRET WEAPON: BEING ANTICIPATORY – DANIEL BURRUS

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BurrusDan_040In many ways it seems impossible that Amazon has been in business for more than 20 years. Time does fly! During that time, Amazon has been – and continues to be – the largest and most innovative leader in the e-commerce market. You may be surprised to discover the other markets Amazon has not only entered, but is also in the process of redefining and reinventing. Continue reading

#137 – RESOLVING TEAM CONFLICT MINIMIZES LOW MORALE RISK – JOHN AYERS

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John Ayers pixAs we know, team conflict is not good and needs to be resolved quickly to maintain a high level of team moral and performance. This notion is true in sports as well in the work place. There are a number of approaches to resolve conflicts. For example: ignore them and hope they work themselves out; fire the main instigator as president Truman did with General MacArthur; confront them and resolve them. I offer an example herein of two approaches to resolve conflict, one of which I feel is a bad approach and one a good approach that I favor. Continue reading

#133 – PROJECT DASHBOARDS: ARE WE MISSING THE PICTURE? – MALCOLM PEART

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Malcom Peart pixI was once asked by a non-English speaker; “What is a dashboard?” Our Client wanted a ‘dashboard’ summary of the monthly status as part of Project Controls for a ‘health check’.

I explained that cars have dashboards. Analogously, I told her that my first car (a Spitfire) had a ‘dashboard’ with a speedometer (marginally functional) to measure speed, temperature gauge (working) to warn of impending overheating, fuel gauge (temperamental) to let me know when I needed to top-up the tank, an odometer (erratic) to let me know how far I had travelled, plus a rev-counter that didn’t work. Continue reading