Skip to main content

The Middle East Crisis and Productivity

We have all seen what is happening with the various uprisings going on in Egypt, Yemen, Iran, Bahrain, and other countries in the Middle East.  None of this should surprise any of us, if we truly understand the power of the Internet and the power of Social Media.  Now you ask what does this have to do with productivity.  Great question.  Imagine if you will, if this kind of power could be turned to improving your marketing, and your sales efforts.  What about with your internal communications to all the people who work with you, your shareholders (if appropriate), your vendors, your customers and so forth.  But you have to be willing at the same time to listen to what is being said, to take action, to listen to the dissenting voices and be prepared to take serious actions, if required,  That takes formidable leadership.  Are you prepared?? 

If you are prepared, then the productivity increases which then can translate into revenue and profitability increases are probably significant.  If you are not prepared, in my opinion, you will suffer the same fate, only in different ways, that some of the leaders in the Middle East are facing or have faced recently.

Bob

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Flaw Of Averages

Yes, this post will be primarily a copy of a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article.  The article is the point of this blog. Over my decades in consulting, one of the major requirements in our niche was to insure that our clients received the savings we had forecast that they would achieve in a mutually agreeable manner.  In the very beginning, when I started back in 1974, computers were not easily available or accessible as they had to be huge room-size machines and many clients did not even have them.  So we used adding machines with paper tape to the shortly thereafter personal hand held-calculators.  Personal computers starting with the very first Apple or Radio Shack model proved far superior but had minimal calculating capacity.  None were perfect and because of this limitation, a straight line average over a years period was typically used to compare history to current and prove savings had been achieved. ...

LISTENING....

We all need to do a better job of listening.  Whether it is a political matter, a business matter, a personal matter or something in the news, we all need to do a better job with this important topic. The recent issue of listening certainly came into being with the CEO of the Crossfit brand.  He spoke with numerous people in this business and apparently did not hear, did not listen or did not want to hear what they were saying.  I wasn't there so I don't implicitly know.  But since then he has resigned as the CEO.  Why?  Basically all because he was not listening. My sister and I are basically polar opposites when it comes to politics, but over the last few years we have both tried much harder to listen to the other's thought and ideas on many topics.  Some we will never agree upon, but some, interestingly enough we found that we could agree on with each other.  All it took was some listening. I was recently going through my archive of art...

ARE WE TEACHING THE RIGHT THINGS IN GRAMMAR SCHOOL?

It was decades ago that I was in grammar school.  Things were significantly different then than they are now.  Of course computers and smart phones were not even in our line of sight as they are today.  I am not questioning the digital revolution one whit, as I believe it is integral to our growth as people, our growth as an economy as well as our growth globally. But I am dismayed by our departure from grammar school years of some of the basics that we used to go through.  I remember one class in particular in 7th grade (about age 12) called Home Economics, in which both the boys and girls had to take.  It was a school year long class and included cooking, sewing, electricity and plumbing.  We all had to learn how to cook some basic foods and as part of the class had to cook a hot lunch for ourselves.  And I am not talking about just opening a can or defrosting someth...