39. Tom Peters searching for small business excellence in tough times
In a fast changing world the need is more than ever to be at the top of your game to survive and prosper – in recession it is tough and in the growth stage the competition gets fiercer. As a small business you generally have more control over your destiny than as an employee, so you […]
38. Peter Drucker interpreted for small business part 10
This is the last part on Drucker. Drucker wrote a lot about motivation. Although like Frederick Winslow Taylor he wanted to build a business system, unlike Taylor Drucker is always aware of the human dimension. He talks about the need to be passionate about what you do, always learning and enjoying. This is not always easy […]
37. Peter Drucker in his own words interpreted for small business part 9
Peter Drucker’s three questions – although starting with ‘what is our business?’ are essentially externally focused on the customer, how they see your business and what they value. But Drucker also looks a lot at the internal process in terms of releasing the capabilities of people and focusing talents on where they are best employed. […]
36. Peter Drucker in his own words interpreted for small business part 8
“What is our business? Who are our customers? What do they value? These are Drucker’s three classic questions and they reduce to very simple non-academic terms what is often turned into a highly theoretical strategic debate. These questions reduce that debate to the essential simplicities – for business is basically simple although it is often […]
34. Peter Drucker in his own words interpreted for small business 6
“We will not be limited by the information, but we will be limited by our ability to process that information” The information overload age is with us with a vengeance but Drucker predicted it over a generation ago. How can you cope? The basic research you have done and continue to do on your market […]
32. Peter Drucker in his own words interpreted for small business 4
“Management is mostly to do with people, not procedures”. Those of you who have been following this series will have read about Frederick Winslow Taylor and his Scientific Management work. His mechanistic approach to efficiency (which focused on what is the most effective set of physical actions to complete a physical process) ignored the fact that […]
31. Peter Drucker in his own words interpreted for small business 3
“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things” – you could substitute the words ‘management’ and ‘leadership’ if you want to. And the distinction is critical. Focusing on making a process work smoothly and seamlessly and achieving that can be very satisfying, but if it is not the right process, it will not […]
19. Scientific Management for small business
From the previous article in this series you will hopefully have got an idea of what a small business might pick up from Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Scientific Management – an approach which is now a century old. This time I thought I would try to be a bit more prescriptive and just say what I think there […]
18. Small business help from beyond the grave
A spooky title – are we into seances? Well, no. But just because the business guru is no longer alive does not mean there are not a number of useful lessons for small business. For instance let’s go back a long way – Frederick Winslow Taylor died in 1917; he was born in 1856. His major […]
17. Long Tail example in the Sunday Times
Some years ago I was reading the Sunday Times over the weekend and came across an article which was the perfect example of what I had been writing about the Long Tail, both as a reality and how the idea has become sufficiently established for it to help mould – or at least express – business views. The article […]
