As businesses develop and grow (and I mean this in the larger sense beyond simply size and profits) over time, their strategic needs change. This is a rough diagram that sums up my thinking thus far on the matter. Click on the image to get a PDF version where you can actually read the text.

I am using this to clarify (for myself) how …

Despair Inc.™: An Honest Org Chart on ZDNet.

Well worth a look, and a laugh, and of course a think.

Thanks to Mark Swivel.

John Fortune and John Bird on the subprime hoo-hah:

And here are my thoughts on this:

Business decisions made by a relative few affects the lives of many.
Much irrational emotions and “sentiments” underlie these decisions. These are unquantifiable. And yet much of the overt discussions are still based around tables of numbers. And many know the power of a …

When Wholefoods’ cash register broke down one day, staff gave groceries away so as not to inconvenience customers.

Is this an exercise in customer care, or sheer business stupidity?

I reckon it is the former. I see it as a great relationship exercise.

The hard core convectional business person would think it is the latter.

The comments are interesting to read.

You can’t please everyone I guess. You can only …

My post Rationality is an illusion elicited a strong response from a business journalist.

The response(and subsequent responses) actually triggered significant further thoughts and clarifications. I thought my response to that is worthy of a separate post.

@Bassi Kumar:

“All the points you make are very genereic and can also be attributable to everyday people. Why just slag businesses?”

Exactly! I am trying to be business-focused …

Reflecting on my current feature post Businesses that have persistent IT emergencies:

Most businesses are not ready for innovation. Or indeed the latest technology, the latest practices, … At least, not until they get the basic basics right first.

The basics being:

Who are you?
What are you about?
What do you do?
Why are you doing it?
How are you doing it?
Are you doing it effectively?
Are you doing it well?
Is your work …

Businesses and certain “experienced business people” like to pretend that rationality is the only way to make “real” business decisions.

Here are some irrational decisions I see many businesses make:

Penny-wise and pound foolish. Buying under-powered equipment, not having maintenance and backup plans, reacting to repeated and avoidable emergencies. Because thinking and planning is too hard.

The boss gets the fastest/best/most powerful computer to surf the web with, while the workers …

Spotted on Gizmodo:

Embarrassing mistakes like this could have been easily avoided had there been some level of diverse/alternate/wider/real-world thinking amongst those involved in the product development.

In his article Why business integrity is so important, Peter Morgan raises two important point about integrity.

Congruency

Having integrity means acting congruently with your values - regardless of what those values are. A business that has integrity does not necessarily mean a business that does “good”. Congruence is the key.

A low-fare airline that expects customers to do everything themselves with no hand-holding does have integrity; because they …

(My friend Stilgherrian and I had a discussion about this during the week. This post contains my synthesised thoughts.)

Clients in perpetual crisis

If you work in IT-related services, you will be familiar with this type of client:

They are always chaotic and in a rush. They only have time to listen to the bare minimum. They run out of time to respond to questions or think. They are …