Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

How Leadership Rewards, Shapes True Company Culture

Key Takeaways

  • Company culture is shaped by daily actions, not slogans.
  • Rewarding the wrong behaviors will discourage high performers.
  • Leadership must align rewards with true company values to build trust and accountability.

The Scene: When Reality Conflicts With Culture

08:00, Friday, New York, Broad Street: I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I could see my teammates swaying uneasily at the back of the crowd, shifting their weight left, right, left, right… We all felt uneasy at what we were witnessing.

Continue reading Culture Isn’t What’s Written On The Wall
Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Key Takeaways:

  • Empathetic Leadership: BCG builds a leadership culture focused on collaboration, growth, and empowering teams.
  • Innovation & Agility: The company stays ahead with AI, machine learning, and a flexible approach to business challenges.
  • Customer Focus: BCG prioritizes understanding and adapting to customer needs to build lasting relationships.
  • Social Responsibility: They integrate sustainability and social impact into their business strategies.
  • Controversial Perspectives: BCG’s leadership style and customer-centric approach may have limitations and could be viewed as reactive rather than revolutionary.

The Problems BCG Faced

Despite its success, BCG didn’t always have it easy. The consulting industry has been undergoing rapid transformation, with newer, more agile competitors emerging, and the pressure to embrace digital technologies growing. BCG, like many traditional consulting firms, struggled initially to make the leap from its conventional methods to the new digital-first world. Their reliance on legacy business models meant that they had to play catch-up in some areas, particularly in tech-driven solutions like AI and machine learning.

Continue reading Why BCG’s Success is More Than Just Innovation: The Controversial Truths Behind Their Strategy
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

Well, what do you think?  

What?  You thought manufacturing was a relic of the past?

Here’s the thing: manufacturing isn’t dead, it’s evolving – and there lies the opportunity for the brave.

Take a look at manufacturing through a different lens.  It’s not a dying industry, but rather one undergoing a dramatic transformation.  Headlines about “robots taking our jobs” and “the death of manufacturing” paint an incomplete picture.  The reality is far more nuanced.

Sure, the days of smokestack factories and assembly lines churning out generic products are fading.  But that doesn’t mean the entire industry is on life support.  It simply means we need to rethink how we manufacture.  The era of innovation and customization is taking over quickly.

Right here, right now you have an opportunity to disrupt, to take over and to take the lead in manufacturing.

Continue reading A Look At Manufacturing Through A Different lens – It’s Time to Reimagine, Not Retire.
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

What’s Killing Retail?

Quick, get the defib, this puppies dead, pupils fixed and dilated. What’s dying is the business model that bad leaders hold tighter than their quarterly earnings. In a lot of instances, our retailers are only alive due to diligent corporate CPR.

What made you relevant last year, won’t make you relevant this year.

The daily list of retail obituaries brings a tear to my eye. Jobs have been lost, money’s been lost and worst of all – a dream has ended – a dream that started with an entrepreneurial spark.

Continue reading I’m calling BS on the notion that the economy is causing the retail sector to die
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

My visionary Dad taught me this early in my career.

When I first started leading teams, I believed my value was in having all the answers. But as time went on, I realized something crucial: the strongest leaders are the ones who admit they don’t know it all.

Here’s what my Dad taught, and i’ve learned, that shifted my approach entirely:

Continue reading Three Top Leadership Tips That Work
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

“I don’t need a generative AI strategy. What I need is an automation strategy,” said Tom Peck, Chief Information and Digital Officer of Sysco.

This hit home for me.

We as professionals know to find solutions to problems so stop searching for problems for AI to solve and start searching for solutions to your problems.

In the rush to adopt AI, we often miss the bigger picture: technology is only valuable when it drives efficiency and real results.

Continue reading Is AI Distorting Your Big Picture?
Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

Let’s help you to grow into the inspirational leader your company needs right now. I’ll share a few simple tips that you can use right now, today to start making positive changes.

Customers are changing, employees are changing, markets are changing. The skills that used to work are changing.

If you’re …

Continue reading Unlocking Inspirational Leadership: 4 Key Skills to Help You & Your Team Thrive
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

This Is Your Opportunity To Start Again

Avoid Your Lust For Certainty – Go Get What’s There For The Brave

Your lust for certainty is killing your decision making.

Something amazingly big has started; wait, make that something amazing and big has started. These are concerning and exciting times for those prepared to move forward with their eyes wide open and their hearts full, to the genuine opportunity yet to come, just like explorers

Continue reading Go Get What’s There For The Brave
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Culture Master Class

The game of business is not about finishing. It is about finding and continuously delivering value to customers. You role is now to work with your teams to find ways to sniff out ideas from customers (and your teams), to be constantly focused on testing or validating what value is in these ideas (by talking with customers and getting something in their hands to try), and to relentlessly work with your teams to shorten cycle times (innovation (idea) to test (value validation) to release (customer).

Business is about Customer Experience. How do your customers feel while engaging with you? How do they feel when they think about you? How do they feel after they have engaged with you? How does your product or service make them feel? Do you frustrate your customers anywhere on their journey? Do you slow them down? Do you confuse them? Do you make it hard for them to buy from you or engage with you?

Continue reading Can you list the emotions your customers want? Are you right?
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

This is one of my core principles. Everyday I work hard to ensure that members of my team can wake up with a sense of purpose. It sounds easy, but like most things in leadership – it’s difficult.

It’s a big goal to set. I try and achieve it every day – and to be honest I don’t always succeed. That’s why this is a team task. During the retros and during my walks and conversations with people, I ask and collect information that will help me work out how to make everyone ‘wake up with a sense of purpose’.

This is how we put a bounce in our team mates step, how we make them want to jump out of bed in the morning and how we inspire them to bring their best to work.

Continue reading Leadership Series: Wake Up With A Sense Of Purpose