92% of C-suite executives surveyed in Mercer’s recent Global Talent Trends study for 2017 are planning to make changes to the design of their organisations in the next two years. So far so good, but none describe their organisations as change ready. This sounds like a recipe for ‘…creating the illusion of progress while producing […]

I joined a company early in my career that sold itself to me as an ‘up or out’ place where high performance is rewarded by big salaries and quick promotion – the corollary being that you would be invited to leave if your performance was not up to par.  This seemed reasonable to me at […]

Some years ago I surveyed 20 senior executives in preparation for their attendance at a leadership development program. The primary purpose for the conduct of these surveys was to contribute to the learning of the 20 participants; but the aggregate data was also useful. There were two standout results from the aggregated survey data. One […]

Technical experts become better at solving complex problems when they have networks of professionals with whom to discuss these problems. This is both intuitively obvious and supported by research. Paradoxically, however, competent people need less help from others so they can be less inclined to collaborate. When you then couple this inherent bias toward lone […]

The achievement level of Australian students has been in decline since 2000 and the latest PISA results offer no solace. If we were talking about corporate results, there would be a tsunami of speculation in the media about the fate of the relevant Board and/or CEO. School leadership is generally understood to be a major […]

Remuneration consultants are often seen driving spreadsheets with internal job data and external data relating to remuneration markets. It is therefore tempting to see the profession as strong on numerical analysis, but it would be wrong to assume that this is their sole preoccupation. Fixed and variable remuneration systems play out in the context of […]

I was a sole practitioner for three years without a marketing department or corporate brand to generate incoming calls. Consequently I had to find cost-effective ways to be seen and heard in the consulting market. Networking was an obvious tactic, so I threw myself into it. Here is what I learned: 1. Enjoy The business […]

Early on in my career I received plenty of advice on how to be effective in my role as an HR practitioner, including the three rules of HR effectiveness: 1. Know the business, 2. Know the business, and 3. Know the business. My other favorite was even more to the point: learn how to say ‘no.’ […]

Some years back I made a very difficult decision to withdraw from a major consulting project. This was a very tough call, and not just because of the dollars involved. We had won the work against some highly credible competitors, and we saw it as an opportunity to substantially enhance our brand in what was […]

I was invited by a client to review the remuneration of a group of employees who were seen as mission-critical. So I did what I was told and discovered that the group was paid reasonable well. This left me with a problem that will be familiar to most management consultants. The presenting issue of this […]