

Learning Nugget 19 - Clouds or Clocks
In an age when all the simple, and even complex problems either have been or can easily be solved, how can you be of the greatest value to your clients ? The challenges and thus opportunities they are presented with are either wicked or super wicked. Weve established through this learning series, that we think for a living. That our ability to learn, unlearn and relearn, and think then behave differently, creatively is the real value we offer clients. helping them see what

Learning Nugget 18 - Your Future as a Non-Conformist
Middle Management are the Custodians of the Status Quo. ASPIRE! Group For years we have said that the very top of an organisation desperately wants change. The front line of an organisation also desperately wants change. But the middle managers are being pulled 6 ways to sunday. Thus the status quo is safer then breaking the invisble shackles. Adam Grant is considered one of the most forward thinkers of our time. Just this month, less than 2 weeks ago, Adam published his


Learning Nugget 17 - Creating Presence
People size you up in seconds, but what exactly are they evaluating? Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy has been studying first impressions alongside fellow psychologists Susan Fiske and Peter Glick for more than 15 years, and has discovered patterns in these interactions. In her new book “Presence,” Cuddy says people quickly answer two questions when they first meet you: Can I trust this person? Can I respect this person? Psychologists refer to these dimensions as w

Learning Nugget 16 - Overcoming Bias
“If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behavior...you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured.” - Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference In Learning Nugget 15 we explored our own bias, the underlying cognitions that drive our decision making, judgement and actions. "We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we thi

Learning Nugget 15 - You're Biased
As brutal as this might sound, you’re biased. Don’t believe me…read on. Look at the diagram below. What’s missing ? Say it out loud. Scroll down…. Keep scrolling....... almost there........ Well do you think you were correct ? You probably said three (3)…..correct ? What’s actually missing is context. If I actually said, on our digital clock, what’s missing, you likely would have said : If I said what’s the fractional representation of 12 over 45 you would have said the /


Learning Nugget 14 - Uncompete
How do you spend most of your day, your week, your month, your quarter ? Would you mostly agree or even partially agree it is spent trying to figure out how to compete better ? Sound like fun? What if, however you did not have to compete ? Would that be a better investment of your time ? If you take 9 months plus to win an opportunity – by competing better – but you only win 30% of those you pursue, that’s a lot of effort for a low return. How many could you win, if there was

Learning Nugget 13 - How Ice Cream affects your sales judgement
I like Ice Cream…….Ice cream will make me fat I like Ice Cream……it’s healthy to have a high calcium rich diet The truth behind what selling is really is We often believe that sales is about convincing a customer to buy our product or service. News flash. It’s not. It’s about helping them achieve better business outcomes, and in doing so reach a state of cognitive consonance Cognitions, they underpin everything we do, every decision we make and action we take. Your clients

Learning Nugget 12 - A Look at Some Disruptive Start Ups
Successfully helping your clients see what they can't see means developing a perspective they can't. Sure being an expert on your technology is one aspect, but not very differentiating. Understanding what the disruptors are doing and hpw they are shattering the ststus quo of traditional business models is a better way. With that we thought we'd take a look at some amazing start up’s in 2015 and see how they are redefining markets, industries and customer expectations. While

Learning Nugget 11 - Business Process 101
What is a business process ? How do you improve or innovate a business process ? How do you even define a business process ? If the goal of every single executive on the planet is to improve business processes, shouldn’t we have some ability to describe in simple terms how to do this ? Process reengineering has been around for a long long time. In fact a very long time, over 50 years. In Learning Nuggets 9 and 10 we learned that process was the core of change and the core of


Learning Nugget 10 - Why you should embrace Jobs to Be Done Theory
The article below is strongly correlated to the to effort required to embrace the potential innovation of a business outcome-focused, go-to-client/customer model. Please take a read of the article below and then our comments immediately following it. In that brief commentary, we will attempt to link the points raised in this article to the unmet customer need that they have related to their “jobs-to-be-done” for measurably enhancing their capabilities to communicate and colla