Knowing what customers want and need is so important, yet everywhere you look there is evidence that this isn’t being heeded. Take the recent political events for example; irrespective of what side of politics you stand, almost every voter was appalled or at least disa...

In times of significant change and market disruption people yearn for unbiased, impartial information and advice to make their decisions. Some people also need support to navigate a changing system that doesn’t always deliver on equity.

There is no doubt in my mind that...

The social sector reforms have seen organisations obsessed with building a strategy to sustain their organisation. The strategies have tended to focus on new branding, a marketing plan and investment in a business development manager. Sometimes it has meant a restructu...

Policy and funding reforms are impacting on services, systems and sectors. Ticking a box to comply to a set of standards is not enough. Linking concepts of quality and translating them into business systems and front line practice will give you the cutting edge, in wha...

In a context where strategy, market position and customer acquisition dominate Board Room  and Staff Kitchen Room discussions, the human impact of what people really value at their point of need is going unnoticed. 
 
Many human service organisations (whether they...

I was leading a session with senior staff and Board members recently about the need for workplace culture reform. The newly appointed CEO was passionate about this. She had been in the job for 3 months now and “…things had to change around here if we are going to be co...

A decade or so ago, we were really focused on efficiency. Classically this is considered to be ‘an efficient means that produces with a minimum of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort’. Sounds really good and logical and assumes that we have waste, are able to identif...

Each year at about this time, organisations are planning, drafting and finalizing budgets. They do this as in the world of business, we all need a budget…or do we? Let’s take a look at the recent Federal Budget which was a compilations of funded actions based on wildly...

The ongoing issue of whether small organisations can survive can been lost in the frenzy about size. The simple fact is that big or small, organisations need to all do the following:

• Understand and articulate your purpose;

• Have a plan but more importantly, the...

For many years, our funders required us to have strategic plans; not so we could follow them not measure the effectiveness of what we did, but because we needed them!

Times have changed and the next time you hear a customer ask for your strategic plan before they decide...