A lot has been said about leadership. The vast majority talk of those charismatic leaders, noted in history who led us through turmoil, war and strife. Great business leaders are also often noted for their ability to galvanize people and shape a collective future.

Figurehead leadership is the accepted way that we think of with names like Winston Churchill, JFK, Napoleon, Richard Branson, Bill Gates springing to mind. However as they say, this is only half the story when it comes to transformation and it may come as a surprise to many that Bennu Group research over the last two years of nearly 200 organizations across Europe and the US suggests that Business Process Management (BPM) reveals a different approach, which appears to be as effective and sometimes more enduring.

This approach is best summed up by borrowing from Nelson Mendalas book Long Walk to Freedom (more…)

By Steve Towers & Terry Schurter

It’s a confusing world out there. At the last count there were over 6,000 improvement methodologies (Wikipedia) all geared to helping organizations get better at business. So at least there’s always been plenty of choice depending on your particular flavor of the month however one has to ask the question why so many and why do even the better ones fail to help our companies adapt and change? (more…)

A theme of recent global conferences has been the mix of different approaches to improving business performance. This quest for business performance improvement as measured by reducing costs, improving revenues and enhanced service (also known as ‘the triple crown’) is a worldwide phenomena brought on by increasing competition, greater customer promiscuity, chaotic business cycles and more generally ‘globalization’. The pressure continues to increase and companies are seeking to extract every last opportunity out of their various initiatives and approaches. So what works best then?

The last three decades have seen a gradual refinement of management thinking and practice to now present a strategic choice for organizations. The route people take should be determined by the place companies find themselves in, the place they would like to get to and the speed with which they need to move. Unfortunately all too often companies are choosing inappropriate methods and tools, investing large amounts of money in dubious technologies and training their people in techniques already proven suspect in the last century. Why is this so?

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