You wouldn’t think that an academic book on grand strategy would have many lessons for managers. But John Lewis Gaddis’ On Grand Strategy does. He is a Pulitzer prize winning academic at Yale. He weaves a strong story with history and analysis. There are many points of interest but I want to focus on three
Category: Business
Stunning RoI for elearning
I’ve got a simple, solid argument that training professional and managerial staff provides a good return on investment (RoI). Put more in and you get more out. That’s a controversial statement. Even more controversial is my claim that you need only a 0.33% increase in productivity to justify buying some elearning courses. There are hundreds of ways
You transmit over 4,000 messages every day.
Every day, you send out 4,000 messages, without once opening your mouth or tapping your keyboard. ‘Micro-messages’ are how humans actually communicate face-to-face, most of the time. Small actions or gestures, eye movements or glances, shifts in posture or body language; they all give a lot away – and much more than we think. We rely on them
Mercedes second-hand car salesman shows great corporate communications
Who do you trust least for truthful corporate communications: estate agents or used-car salesmen? Used-car salesmen have just dropped out of my list as a result of a great job of sales and corporate communications by Jason Leporte at the Mercedes dealership in New Maldon, London, just off the A3. There are lessons for all
Top Tip: get the bad news out soonest and make it personal
Tesco CEO Dave Lewis made the right choice today: admit publically bad things have gone on and talk about them. The lesson is: do not hide from the bad news in corporate communications and respond quickly and personally from the top. That’s your pension going down The profits may have been overstated by £250 million.
3 for and 3 against centralised content generation
Centralised content generation – or creating a hub for many publications to generate content – is on top of the agenda for many content generators. It’s been in operation for many years in some publishers for other functions and it’s time to take hard look at why it works and does not work. Functional or
RBS: poor policy poorly communicated to axe bank managers
Royal Bank of Scotland has decided to axe its bank managers in its branches. A poor decision when more people want to see the person in charge and not be told “the computer says no”. Poor communications And to compound the error it communicates it badly: or not at all directly. The Times carries the
Majestic customer communications from Majestic Wines
Majestic Wines has launched a marketing offensive with a majestic piece of corporate communications to its customers. Capture customer adresses and use them Majestic captures the addresses of its customers at the point of sale. It has used this information to mail them a 12-page brochure on its “Easter Pick ‘N’ Mix” offer with 33%
King at Sainsbury’s: communications is the king
Justin King leaves Sainsbury’s in a hail of praise: but probably for the wrong things. His real strength was corporate communications: a simple message clearly delivered from the top. He has been praised for reinvigorating Sainsbury’s after 10 years of transformation. Sainsbury’s is now challenging Tesco for the top slot in retailing. Five reasons for
First impressions matter…
Is there a tide of change in recruitment…? Organisations are now starting to recognise that everything they publish, distribute, or post has to reinforce the brand message. Now, it is no longer enough to have a slick website if the careers section looks like a back-street fast-food stall, or worse. I still see many glossy