The Managing Director of the World Economic Forum recently published an article called ‘Why the World Needs Systems Leadership, Not Selfish Leadership’ The article concludes: The self-important don’t always win. Selfless leadership can create systemic change that spreads happiness – instead of hoarding it. At Intelligent Management we have been educating executives to be Systems […]
How to Take the SWOT Analysis to a Whole New Level
This week, a client of ours drew up a SWOT analysis and it turned out to be a very productive event. The SWOT analysis tool has been around for a very long time. The Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats categories are comfortably familiar to many as a way of brainstorming and analyzing the current reality of […]
Why Projects Complete “Sooner or Later”
What is a project? It’s a word that everyone is familiar with but it can mean very different things to different people. This can lead not just to misunderstandings but to intrinsic unreliability in delivery. In other words, far too many projects in the world get delivered “sooner or later” with all the knock-on negative […]
Achieving Predictability in Uncertain Times? Learn to Understand Variation
We live in such astonishingly uncertain times. So let’s do something that’s good for our mental and emotional health and lend some attention to an aspect of management that’s grounded in science and related to predictability. This is strongly connected with our previous post about Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the father of Quality and the […]
Dr. Who? Deming’s Teachings about Management are More Relevant than Ever
If we want to manage our organizations more effectively, profitably and respectfully, we need to heed the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, American physicist and statistician, and the man who helped Japan rebuild itself after World War II. Though Deming is regularly quoted in articles and blog posts, sadly it is often out of […]
Digital Content and Business – Systemic Lessons Learned
Every brand is a media company. This is a huge take away from our friends at Hyphen-Italia at their event yesterday on Omnichannel Digital Production Management. No matter what kind of a business you are today, you must produce digital content that can be published on multiple channels. When you consider that over 80% of commercial […]
The Limiting Beliefs Holding Your Business Back – and What to Do About It
If a business is not growing, it’s shrinking. It’s a hard truth to accept. There is no such thing as standing still because plenty of other businesses are moving forward. Even if your market share increases, how much is it increasing in proportion with the growth of the market? So what is it that holds businesses […]
Some Summer Reading for Whole System Change
The famous “brioche con gelato” in Salerno, Italy. As we take a few days off mid-August Italian style, we wish all our subscribers and readers a serene and regenerating summer period. We will be back soon with our regular blog. In the meantime, here is a selection of some of our most popular posts […]
How to Do New Product Development Seamlessly with a Systems Approach
Any organization that wishes to innovate must be able to develop new products. The ability to develop new ideas, and new products in particular, can be stimulated and increased systemically by addressing the “cognitive limits” of the organization using the Thinking Processes from the Theory of Constraints. The capacity to continuously innovate has become a […]
The Transformational Message of Deming for Today’s Fragmented World
“It would be better if everyone worked together as a system.” These few, simple words reveal a mindset and worldview capable of transforming everything we do. Transforming what? A divisive, zero-sum-game way of doing business and managing/controlling people towards one of whole systems optimization. This is not idealism. This is applying systems science to human […]