5 New Strategic Initiatives That Are Creating Business Impact Right Now

We asked our colleagues across Forum to share strategic initiatives that have a positive impact for clients. We see a gradual shift away from short-term focus on results, and a renewed emphasis on the implementation of strategic initiatives to take organizations forward.  Here are some examples: 1. Re-engage employees through focus on growth Clients are re-engaging [...]

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Creating a positive organizational climate during an economic downturn

Tom Atkinson, Director of Customer Research I interviewed Jim Simmons (a pseudonym) recently.  A sales executive for a leading provider of health insurance plans, he is responsible for leading a sales force of independent agents in New England who offer health coverage to employees of companies through the companies themselves.  A particularly challenging aspect of [...]

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A metaphor for the beauty of global warming

By André Alphonso I have been asked to travel from India to Australia to deliver a client workshop to an audience of Australian senior managers who want to become more effective in leading their remote teams based in India.  Leading geographically dispersed and culturally diverse teams is an emerging challenge for many global organizations operating in [...]

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Are You Dancing Today’s Dance to Yesterday’s Music?

By Steve Barry  “History” is a hot button for many of our clients.  Some firms cite history as an impediment to success.  For others, it’s a good thing.  Which is it?   Recent research at Stanford University[1] suggests that it depends on how a firm has performed in the past.  When firms have successfully survived competition, [...]

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Advice we’re giving our clients on accelerating strategy execution through people

At a property management company, the senior leadership team was keen to communicate their progress on the organization’s plan to sustain a strategic customer service improvement initiative. We suggested that the leadership team develop a scorecard (modeled off of our business scorecard) for themselves that would be updated on a monthly basis and communicated, via [...]

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2-6-2 Rule

By André Alphonso, Managing Director, Forum India  During the course of my working life I have been influenced by many mentors. One of these mentors shared with me what he called his “2-6-2 Rule.”  It changed my thinking.  Let me share it with you:    This mentor of mine was a medic in Vietnam.  After a battle he [...]

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Social Networking: A productive endeavor or an attractive distraction?

By Matthew Allen, Project Coordinator There is no question that expanding both relationships and networks is an important activity for any sales leader.  However, as businesses attempt to deal with the forces of today’s economic climate, these two like-minded initiatives quickly jump from important to imperative.  Countless studies implicitly connect these two actions (relationship building [...]

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What Do Golf and Leadership Have in Common?

By André Alphonso, Managing Director, Forum India  A few weeks ago, in New Delhi, I happened into the company of one of the leading golf coaches for professional golfers in the Asian tour:  Kel Llewellyn, an Australian who coaches several well known pro golfers on the world circuit. I asked him what he focuses his [...]

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12 Signs of a Team That Delivers Quality With Speed

   By Tom Atkinson, Director, Customer Research  What’s the best way to achieve high-quality results when you’re under pressure to deliver quickly?  A recent Forum initiative provides some clues.  Forum’s leadership team took an innovative approach to identifying new business opportunities in today’s demanding economic environment:  It created five cross-functional teams and assigned each team [...]

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What Headlines Will You Write?

By Kerry Johnson, Executive Consultant Over the past month or so I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many of our customers about the impact of the tough economy on their businesses. The focus of these group talks has been on what leaders can do to make a difference. Forum’s view is that leaders can [...]

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