Fulford Place George Fulford was a pharmaceutical manufacturer who made his large fortune with "Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People"; these were sold in over 80 countries around the world. The 'pink pills' were actually, essentially, iron tablets. And the 'pale people' were those suffering from anaemia of which there were many resulting...
Read MoreConsider the story of the blind men and the elephant. Each man touches a different part of the elephant and describes it based on his limited experience. One feels the trunk and thinks it’s a snake, another touches the leg and believes it’s a tree, while another feels the side and describes it as a wall, the fourth holds its tail and thinks it's...
Read MoreAnd conversely, the power of strong, lived values A company's values are becoming an increasingly important part of a market's buying decision making - and that market is made of up thousands or millions of individual people. And, in a world where people are losing trust in governments and other traditional guiding institutions (Edelman Trust...
Read MoreIn today's rapidly evolving business landscape, complexity seems to be a persistent constant. As business owners and CEOs, the challenge is not just to navigate this complexity but to thrive within it. We humans have been running businesses for a long time (several thousand years), so you'd think we would have a good handle on how to do that....
Read MoreAs I talk to business owners, I often enquire as to what is high on their list of headache inducing issues - and the 2 that are most commonly mentioned are money and people. And it's been like that for many, many years. The specific details may change, but those 2 categories
Read MoreAnd while we can look at the legacy of human endeavour for many answers to today's questions, there is a much richer and older source of inspiration and ideas that could help us solve many of our more tactical and systemic challenges. And that is the natural world around us. Over millions or billions of years of evolution, living organisms...
Read MoreWe've probably all seen starlings. Brownish birds that hang around in groups, often with quite thuggish behaviour as they swarm a food source to the exclusion of all other birds. If you look a little closer, you might notice that when they catch the light, there seems to be some iridescence to their feathers - and if you stand back you...
Read MoreYou don't build a business – you build people – and then people build the business. Zig Ziglar I was recently running a workshop for a client to address the way they worked (their processes and organisational structures) and they way they worked together (communications and culture). During the energised conversation, I was reminded once again...
Read MoreOne of the first things I ask of an audience when running my Strategic Thinking workshops is "raise your hand if you think you are a strategic thinker". I am always amazed at how few people raise their hands straight away - probably about a fifth if that, and then a few do the slight raising lowering thing which implies they think they maybe,...
Read MoreSmall and medium-sized businesses constitute the backbone of the North American economy. They make up a staggering 98% of all businesses and generate approximately 40% of total business revenue. Of those, around 60 to 70% are supplying other businesses (B2B) - as opposed to serving an end customer directly (B2C). Therefore, most businesses are...
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