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Ever heard of the Microsoft 4-7 principle ?
Read it up, might show why they are so productive. In essence - no team or concept or grouping is smaller than 4 or bigger than 7 units/people/concepts, etc. Key-men dependencies kick in under 4 and diminishing returns over 7. Simple and effective.
by JoeAverage

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01 September 2010 01:29

Meetings: Work? Or just a waste of time?

Decision-free zones are drains on productivity.

"Are you lonely? Bored? Nothing to do? Well... no problem, just call a meeting! You'll get to sit around with your mates, get coffee and biscuits brought to you and discuss nothing of any consequence. Best of all, you don't have to do any real work and before you know it, it'll be time to head down to the pub."

I remember this poster from my early days in advertising and lately it has been playing in my head like an irritating, albeit relevant, ABBA "song worm".

It seems like meetings have become the holding pattern of corporate life - a safe, decision-free zone to hang out in, ironically at a time when we desperately need to land and tackle some very pressing issues.

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30 June 2010 07:24

The South Africa that we could become

World Cup lessons....strictly for the fans.

JOHANNESBURG - Vision, mission and strategic intent - the classic business school lingo which sees most people's eyes snow over like a faulty TV set.

The hyper analytical among us only make it worse by adding complexity in the form of graphs, maps models, and the like. Unless you work for a management consultancy or are doing your MBA, these potentially powerful concepts remain overused, meaningless buzzwords.

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02 June 2010 01:00

How do we measure up?

Does measurement madness really add value?

Are you more than the value of your share price portfolio? Your company's profitability? Your bonus? Your performance appraisal score? Your  weight? Your jogging or cycling time/distance? The reps you do at the gym? Your IQ, bank account or property value? As a nation, are we more than our GDP? Our inflation targets?  Interest rates? Currency strength? The list is endless. We seem to spend our lives chasing numbers. In fact an alien from another planet could be forgiven for assuming that th e whole purpose of our existence is to answer the question - how are we measuring up?

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29 April 2010 01:13

Do we really know what turns people on?

Why rewards and incentives need a major rethink.

JOHANNESBURG -If I had a hundred bucks for every time I sat in a meeting and the problem of underperformance was resolved with some kind of incentive scheme, I would be sitting in the Bahamas (rather than writing this column).  In fact, if it were as simple as the flick of a "pay more and you get more" switch, most of you would be joining me!

So how do we get people to work harder? Be more productive? Save costs? Change the way they do things? The question may vary but the answer always seems to be the same: the tried and trusted carrot and stick approach.

But how well does this approach work? Does it work at all? And if not threat of punishment or promise of reward what else is there?

Well as often happens, practice proves theory as outdated and practice is paving the way for a new approach to motivation.

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23 March 2010 21:32

Swimming naked (when the tide has gone out!)

Is it time to rediscover values?

JOHANNESBURG - Do you ever wonder what world leaders talk about when they get behind closed doors?

By all reports just a few weeks ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos they were talking about "swimming naked".

"Swimming naked" refers to a much-quoted Warren "Buffettism" ...."You only find out who has been swimming naked when the tide has gone out".

A key theme at Davos this year was the extent to which the wrong values or no values at all had played a role in the tide going out - the current global economic crisis.

Whereas Davos 2009 was dominated by the question of: "When will this crisis be over?" (CNN actually had a whiteboard on which each CEO could write his/her view on when the economic crisis would finally end), this year the question ha...

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