Stop focusing on failure

What is it about us? We love to focus on failure, to point out what went wrong, to rejoice in misfortune – but why?

Have you ever listened to a football crowd in this country? The venom with which some comments are made to players is disturbing. Even at school games the ‘helpful’ feedback from coaches and parents is enough to put some kids off for life. Why can’t we be more supportive?

At a recent rugby game in Australia I didn’t hear one single negative comment directed at the home team. (Plenty at the opposition mind you). When someone made a mistake, and there were plenty, all they got was support and encouragement from the supporters – the clue is in the name.

I remember my kids learning to walk. Plenty of mistakes there. When they fell over though I don’t remember once ridiculing them or shouting abuse. Of course not, it would be ridiculous. So when does it change? When does it become alright to stop being supportive and encouraging and start pointing out mistakes and being critical?

By now you are probably thinking, with kids – especially our own - we should always support and encourage them. Absolutely.

Why? Because we know it makes sense. So, this being the case, why doesn’t a similar logic apply in every walk of life?

Integrated Business Planning

It doesn’t matter how well thought out and logical your business plan is, if individuals do not commit to specific actions, then it becomes merely words on a sheet of paper.

Yet the planning process is often a top down activity that can lead to a lack of buy-in at best, and at worst, the plan gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. So how do you ensure buy-in and commitment to a business plan?

Some basic principles include:

• people need to understand the aims being pursued. That is, the purpose and what the deliverables will be
• the earlier that people are involved in the process the better input = commitment. So the more input people have the greater their commitment
• people need to understand where they fit in the process and how their contribution will affect the outcome
• their contribution needs to be valued

These principles can be classed as integrated business planning and can be used to involve employees. You need to begin the process by clarifying the aims being pursued. These aims can be arranged in a hierarchy, starting with the strategic aims of the organisation. Aligned with these will be the strategic aims of the company’s respective business units, then the shorter term aims of the business unit (usually annual) and then departmental aims.

Leadership – what now?

The last decade has seen massive change. The workplace has evolved constantly so that companies can keep pace with the demands of an ever shifting competitive market. The modern business needs to be adaptable, flexible and light on its feet. This means new roles for managers and leaders. They need to operate differently, and they need new behaviours and new skills. The old command and control model is no longer appropriate.

These days a different model of leadership is needed, a more collaborative style where the leader is more like a coach than a commander, leading through expectations rather than instruction and supervision.

The importance of good customer service

Good customer service is something all businesses need to ensure sustained success.

However, the real challenge lies in how it is delivered. It’s one thing for a business to pay lip-service to the concept and another entirely to ensure good customer service is placed solidly (and consistently) at the forefront of everything a company does.

Everyone talks about how important it is and the need for it. However, it’s easy to talk about it, much more difficult to do.

So what do we actually mean by customer service? Here are a few definitions courtesy of CustomerServiceManager.com - the online community for customer service professionals:

• Customer service is the ability to provide a service or product in the way that it has been promised
• Customer service is about treating others as you would like to be treated yourself
• Customer service is an organisation's ability to supply their customers’ wants and needs
• Customer Service is a phrase used to describe the process of taking care of customers in a positive manner

Coverdale – Why teams don’t always work

We often get asked if teamwork is always the best approach. Our answer is that whenever you can achieve an aim better by working individually, then you don’t need a team. Often in truly creative tasks or in endeavours where patient detail and oriented focus is required (imagine a watchmaker) teamwork would take longer and risk compromising a high quality result. The challenge for the leader is to determine the right balance between independent individual action and a team approach.

There are steps before the action phase of a task or project and after completion that still require cooperative and leadership skills: the aims for the project have to be agreed upon, so that all stakeholders are aligned with the deliverables. After completion the end result has to be accepted by the clients of this project.

When teamwork is most appropriate, e.g. when a variety of skills are required for project completion, other challenges can prevent a team from being effective. According to research by J. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at Harvard University and a leading expert on teamwork, teams often struggle and don’t work based on the following issues:

• team size, boundaries and membership are not clear 
• there are no compelling direction and vision 
• the team lacks organisational support
• team members have underdeveloped  cooperative and operative teamwork skills 

To address team dysfunction, HR development programs often focus on individual behavioural change and skill development that have little direct effect on team performance. Hackman proposes that expert team coaching is critical to build successful and effective teams. In our experience he is right. Teams are made up of individuals and their behaviour is critical to the success of the team. Equally important, and often overlooked, are the team processes that make everything work. There are many tasks that are better performed individually, however at some point most tasks, projects, functions and business will involve a need for others to be involved and that is when collaborative skills come into play.

The Do’s and Don’t’s of Organisational Development

The pressures of the business environment and the pursuit to generate fees at all costs, has often led to less than honourable behaviour from certain consultants. This, in turn,causing client dissatisfaction and lending substance to the now famous saying: "a consultant is someone who borrows your watch and charges to tell you the time…and then keeps the watch”.


There are of course many good consultants out there doing an excellent job, adding real value for their clients.


So, to stimulate debate around the issue, here is a list of characteristics which we believe are key examples of both the not so good and the good.... Hopefully this is helpful.

Feel free to contribute to the debate.