The Shower Principle
A client asked me recently: “Where do you get your ideas?” We had just finished a session where I’d proposed a solution to a problem that had been sitting on his desk, unsolved, for the better part of a year. He’d brought in two other consultants before me. Neither had cracked it. I told him […]
The Key Person You Cannot Afford To Lose
I was sitting in a client’s office not long ago. He was walking me through his monthly process — the manual steps, the spreadsheets, the workarounds he’d built over the years to keep things running. It was exactly why I was there. We were going to automate it. Halfway through the conversation, I stopped him. […]
A Postcard From The Edge Of The Universe
By the time you read this, I am somewhere in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. At 2,400 metres above sea level. No humidity. No light pollution. Just the clearest night sky on the planet — and more telescopes per square kilometre than anywhere else on Earth. The reason the world’s best observatories are here […]
Stop Renting Software You Already Own
It starts innocently enough. One tool for project tracking. One for reporting. One for approvals. One for your quotes. Each one is $29 a month. Each one saves you ‘hours of work’. Each one is absolutely, definitely worth it. Until you add them up. Most mid-size businesses are paying $40,000–$80,000 a year in […]
The $1M Decision You Did Not Expect
Did you know that recruiting new people can be a million dollar decision? Look, this is a big claim isn’t it? That recruiting someone new is a million dollar decision – and for a lot of business it is. Let’s do the following mind game: If your business is on a 12% to 15% markup, […]
The Total Cost of Ownership
Look ten or twenty years ago, the word “Total Cost Of Ownership” was on every bodies mind and in every bodies discussions about IT, Hardware and Software. But since then it kind of vanished from the discussions.And remember: it is still prevalent, it is still so important. Now, let’s talk about the system. Let’s see how repetitive, how responsive, how reliable your processes are?If […]
The Secret of the Yellow Cells
The Yellow Cells in an Excel Spreadsheet We’ve all seen this in so many spreadsheets. The entry cells are highlighted in yellow. So why is that?What’s the reason for this? So first and foremost if you don’t highlight your input cells, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to focus the user of your Excel spreadsheets […]
How To Avoid Repetitive Tasks
If you find yourself doing repetitive tasks all the time, this one is for you. Welcome to my latest newsletter where I want to talk about “The Conundrum of Repetitive Tasks” because we’ve all been there, we’ve all done this… Looking at the database of a 100 rows we think “oh I can quickly go through them one by one […]
How To Tap Into The Power Of Our Brains
Let’s talk about the Power of our Brains… Clients often ask me, where do you come-up with your ideas? How do you solve these business riddles? Do you run around your desk? Do you do deep thinking? Let me make a confession here: My best ideas are coming in the morning under the shower. How’s that? Well, at […]
How I Solve These Business Riddles
Here is how I solve these business riddles that my clients present to me. They want to let go of the confusion and frustration they have been dealing with. I draw on more than 35 years of experience working with global companies like AMP, Rodenstock and Stryker and under my guidance, these companies were able […]