Some business process leaders are doing much better in changing their work practices compared to others. What do well-performing leaders know about adapting their organisation’s processes swiftly and adequately, that others don’t? And how well you are doing well as a process leader? New book from Janne Ohtonen, takes inspiration from the Greek phrase “panta rhei” (or “everything flows”) once spoken by philosopher Heraclitus, indicating that everything is susceptible to change. This still holds true, 2500 years after these words were first spoken. Organizations are changing constantly, under pressure of market demand, competitive forces, technological inventions and new legislation. This demands also for new kind of leadership. “I wrote this book to help business leaders develop a culture of agility and adapt their way-of-working in response to external impacts on their business and value proposition,” says Ohtonen. With over 150 pages and 52 articles, one for each week throughout the year, the book concisely articulates a number of best practices for business leaders to turn their organizations around towards the new way customers act. Ohtonen continues, “Today’s customers expect to be treated personally, instantly, and through their own preferred channel – be it online or offline. They are members of a socially hyper-connected world with all information right at their fingertips. Organizations simply need to adapt to this new customer, not only by opening an online store or a Twitter account, but also by changing their mind-sets, behaviours and leadership styles to become truly customer-centric. I wanted to share my ideas on how these tools can help with everyday leadership processes.” To find out how you could improve both business and your leadership and to make sure you will be doing financially better this year, get your hands on this book and inspire your thoughts. The first 12 weeks in the book include important topics such as:Are you still working with outdated business methods? Ingredients for process culture that brings the results! How to launch a BPM programme successfully? How to build customer satisfaction into business processes? What could help to make change more sustainable?Prominent business blogger and author Janne Ohtonen has published a new book called “You Think You Are Doing Well? Become a Winner With Customer-Centric Process Leadership!” which helps contemporary leaders to improve their process flows and personal leadership skills.This book is available as a downloadable version at http://52weeks.ohtonen.fi
Kanban – 3rd Party Hand-Offs
There are times when 3rd party dependencies are unavoidable. Many teams attempt to avoid playing cards through the wall until they are sure 3rd party work is complete and won’t become a blocker by the time the developers pick up the work. But, the devil is always in the detail and hand-offs are inevitable in … »
Kanban Values Exercise released
[Cross-posted from edu.leankanban.com] I’ve added an exercise on Kanban’s values to the foundational and advanced practitioner training decks. This has become a fixture even at train-the-trainer events and I ran it twice(!) at the recent Kanban Leadership Retreat in Monterey. From … Continue reading →
IBM x-86 Server Line Sale to Lenovo is Win-Win For All
In a deal that is a win-win for all concerned, Chinese PC maker, Lenovo Group Ltd. will purchase IBM’s low-end, commodity x 86 Server portfolios, related resources and operations for $2.3 billion, which includes $2.07 billion cash with the remainder in stocks. The sale of the IBM x86 servers has been rumored for well over […]
Spice up the life with weekly process leadership learning
A book called “You Think You Are Doing Well? Become a Winner With Customer-Centric Process Leadership!” has been published to help you to develop both your personal leadership and business process management skills with each passing week. Even though this book may initially seem like a random collection of wisdom, it is based on the experience the author has accumulated over the last ten years of working as a professional business process management and leadership coach. The world has become a complex place and many kinds of demands are placed on the people who work in decision-making positions. This book seeks to help you to move forward on your path of personal growth towards better leadership and business improvement skills. What you can expect from this book is a compilation of thought-provoking ideas and reflective questions that will hopefully trigger your mind to generate insight that adds value to your life. Culture is the driving force in business process management. The culture must support the fundamental ideology behind the reason for an organisation to exist. And as we all know, every organisation exists to fulfil customers’ needs and wants in one way or another (hence the need for measuring and increasing customer satisfaction also). Process improvement requires the right kind of organisational culture to support it. This book gives you ideas to building customer-centric process culture in your organisation through you growing as a leader. The benefit of this kind of learning is that you can advance at your own pace and implement the actions that are most relevant in your situation. To spice up your life with weekly process leadership learning, get your hands on this book and inspire yourself into new actions. The book includes important topics such as: How can business coaching help you reach specific goals? How to motivate employees besides with money? What can you do to create better customer experiences? Are you losing your productivity? Here is how to get it back! How can you gain more influence?Prominent business blogger and author Janne Ohtonen has published a book called “You Think You Are Doing Well? Become a Winner With Customer-Centric Process Leadership!” which helps contemporary leaders to improve their process flows and personal leadership skills.This book is available as a downloadable version at http://52weeks.ohtonen.fi
IBM Watson Takes Cognitive Computing to the Head of the Class
Pardon the pun, but there’s nothing elementary about IBM’s newly formed, New York City-based Watson Business Unit (BU). IBM is committing $1 billion and 2,000 employees, as well as its considerable research and development (R&D) talents and marketing muscle to Watson, thus putting the full weight of its global technology and services brand behind the […]
Creating Engagement through Empathy engineering? people buy from people
Creating Engagement Through Empathy Engineering? So how do you build truly great levels of customer value? We have all heard the stories about customers with an 85% satisfaction rating being almost as likely to leave you as those with a 60% rating. Well, perhaps that is because being satisfied with a service is simply not … Continue reading →
B2B or B2C, it’s all P2P to me
In an age of big data and a seemingly endless capacity to produce and absorb information, one could be forgiven for believing that the end of the TLA, the three-letter acronym, is nigh. It should be, particularly for the subject of this piece, but for different reasons. Popping up everywhere in emails and presentations, these […]
How Do People (And Organisations) Learn?
My personal observation is that there are three types of learning:1. Factual/Immediate – learning data and facts, as one does at school or from a book. The information is immediately learned, but might also be as quickly forgotten! If the information is frequently used then it more easily remembered.2. Gradual – progressive learning of a skill or process, e.g. the way a professional chef slices vegetables. Anyone who sees it can immediately do it VERY slowly and VERY carefully, but with practice will get incrementally better. Because of the continuous practice the skill becomes deeply ingrained.3. Discontinuous – abrupt learning of a skill, e.g. riding a bike or learning to juggle. You can see it demonstrated but can’t do it, you have to try again and again, and then suddenly something clicks and you’ve mastered it. Then gradual progressive learning takes over as you build and improve the skill.So, what does this mean to a business?Discontinuous learning requires a safe environment where you can repeatedly make mistakes until you get it right. When you do get it right you take a big leap forward in competence. For example, a few years ago I taught myself to juggle; one ball and then two balls is easy, getting to three is extremely hard and took a week of dropping them in a room with plenty of space and no breakables. But then, one day, quite suddenly I caught the third and did a proper juggle. I immediately did it again, then again, and within minutes started to improve how long I could keep them in the air – gradual learning had taken over.How many businesses allow their teams to try something new and fail? Are failures treated as a chance to learn, or the opportunity to blame someone? If businesses had environments where repeated trial and error was not only possible but promoted, would more businesses make massive breakthoughs into entirely new territory?A safe environment means two things. First, your teams have the space, time and permission to try things that might not work, they are doing so with the support and encouragement of the company, and they don’t get blamed if ideas don’t work. And second, the business supports and trials these ideas in a controlled way that doesn’t put the rest of the business at risk.How good is your business at encouraging this kind of innovation?
Utilities take another customer service bullet
December was another dire month for utility companies again after the recent publication of a Which? report outlining call waiting times for customer service versus sales lines.
