http://sidewise.biz A side-wise view of business and the enterprise Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:16:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en If you're in any kind of business, you'll know who your clients are: you deal with them every day. And serving their needs will no doubt take up much of your attention, too. And you, or someone in your organisation, will know who your prospects are - the people who aren't ... http://sidewise.biz/2010/01/who-are-your-anti-clients/ One of the most common business metaphors is the market. But what exactly is a market? And how does that metaphor help us understand the wider economy within which the business will act? It's worth thinking sidewise for a while to make better sense of this. First, whilst we may ... http://sidewise.biz/2009/11/market-as-economy/ When power in the workplace transmutes into bullying, we have a problem. A big problem. Probably the most-acknowledged form of 'power' is that of hierarchical authority, the reporting-relationship between supervisor and supervisee, 'boss' and 'worker'. The boss gives the orders, the worker must obey - or supposedly should, at any rate. There's ... http://sidewise.biz/2009/11/power-and-bullying-in-workplace/ How do you and your staff learn new skills? And what can be done to make it quicker and easier to learn those needed skills? One answer is to explore the patterns in the skills-learning process. On the surface, each skill is different, and different for every person; yet there are ... http://sidewise.biz/2009/09/skills-labyrinth/ Continuous-improvement is the cornerstone of many recent innovations in the business world - Shewhart/Deming quality-management, Six-Sigma, Agile software-development, kaizen process-improvement and lean-manufacturing, to name just a few. The mantra of "release early, release often" has been a factor in the success of many Open Source software projects. And there many ... http://sidewise.biz/2009/09/make-improvement-visible/ People who know me would recognise that I'm no great fan of the money-economy. Yet that objection isn't about "money is the root of all evil" and all that, but much more that it's so incredibly inefficient. To put it bluntly, it simply doesn't work. Sure, at a simplistic first glance, ... http://sidewise.biz/2009/09/money-wastes-time/ If you work in a large organisation, no doubt you'll have analysts everywhere; you may well be one yourself. You know who they are, what they do, what part they play: financial analysts, business analysts, process analysts, quality analysts and the like, keeping track of activity, performance, change. But what about ... http://sidewise.biz/2009/08/business-anarchist/ Success often arises just from avoiding failure. For example, consider the 'ten commandments for business failure' listed by former Coca-Cola CEO Don Keough: "You will fail if you quit taking risks, are inflexible, isolated, assume infallibility, play the game close to the line, don’t take time to think, put all your ... http://sidewise.biz/2009/08/ten-failures-to-avoid/ [to the tune of "Where have all the flowers gone?"] Where have all the good skills gone? Long time passing Where have all the good skills gone? Long time ago Where have all the good skills gone? Gone to robots every one When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn... This one's really a corollary or implication ... http://sidewise.biz/2009/07/skills/ "Our people are our greatest asset." How often have you heard that phrase? How often have you used that phrase yourself? But how often have you stopped to think about what it means? - and what it implies in real business practice? No doubt it's intended as a compliment, a statement of ... http://sidewise.biz/2009/07/relationship-as-asset/