17 Feb
Posted by admin on Friday February 17th 2012, in Consulting news
We’ve been working for many months now on a consulting assignment with a major programme in the UK. I won’t say more about the programme here or you’d know what it was and that’s not the point. The point is a reflection on what it takes to really serve clients. We work alongside big consulting firms whose people, for reasons we understand, are incentivised to make targets for revenue in a particular period, overall margin and staff utilisation. Many of these people and firms do fantastic work, criticising them isn’t the point of this blog either. The challenge for them is that it’s really difficult to put the client first in those situations, but our experience is that there is no quicker and more lasting route to building trust and therefore ongoing profitable work, than putting the client’s interests every so slightly ahead of your own. Servant leadership, with it’s routes in the Christian church has a growing reputation as a sound business practice. Servant consulting (sub-servience as some might label it in the negative) has a tangible business case in our recent experience.
22 Jan
Posted by admin on Sunday January 22nd 2012, in Risky stuff
So often risk sessions (workshops, meetings, reviews) are dull and boring and many clients tell us that in their organisation you can ‘lose the will to live’ in such sessions. Ruth and Penny Pullan know it doesn’t have to be like that. Following on from their book – the “Short Guide to Facilitating Risk Management: engaging others to identify, own and manage risk” (published by Gower Publications in 2011) – they have a new course running on 21/22 March that promises to be great fun and even better value.
It will take place at the brand new Radisson Blu hotel at East Midlands airport (it’s very nice) and we will have a really practical two days, with lots of opportunity for practice, feedback and support as you plan to run sessions in your organisation where risks needs to be identified, prioritised and managed.
For more information you can contact Ruth on ruth@lucidusconsulting.com or all the details can be found on www.facilitatingrisk.com/programmes
31 Dec
Posted by admin on Saturday December 31st 2011, in Consulting news
We’d planned to do a blog post this week that shared how pleased we were to be invited to tender for a piece of consultancy work (reviewing current practices, options and recommendations for change) with an organisation we don’t know – but one where a client from the past had recently moved into a senior role. It’s reassuring to know that our work has engendered enough confidence that people will recommend us when they move into a new organisation.
As I sit down to actually write the post therefore it’s fantastic to report then, on the eve of a New Year, that our proposal was successful and we’ll be starting the work very soon through a core team and some associates. Happy New Year.
13 Dec
Posted by admin on Tuesday December 13th 2011, in Consulting news
Ruth, Sergio and Peter had a great day yesterday with six of our associates discussing some of the organisational change implications of our current assignments, and refining our understanding and ability to plan for the actuality of planned change in organisations. We were discussing the complexities of assignments where we are engaged with changing work practices in a particular group of people as a precursor to wider organisational changes – and the need to design the first change in the image of the desired outcomes from the wider changes. Confused? It would be easy to be. Just to say that our investment of our time and travel yesterday to get together, share and plot was really valuable and puts us in an even better position to help our clients. We’re continuing to try to shed light in dark places!
04 Dec
Posted by admin on Sunday December 4th 2011, in Risky stuff
This was a headline in the weekend financial times yesterday and as I read the article – and once again observed the concept of ‘risk appetite’ being used in numerous, confused ways, I thought it was timely to tell you about my next book – co-authored with David Hillson again, which will be a Gower book in the Short Guide series called “A short guide to Risk Appetite: how much risk should we take?” The manuscript will be ready by January 2012 and the book published by summer 2012. It builds on our recent paper published in the Journal of Project, Program and Portfolio Management (vol. 2, no.1) – see http://www.lucidusconsulting.com/Publications/Conference-papers—associated-articles.
In writing the paper and book, we have tried to cut through loose jargon on this crucial topic and come up with a practical guide on how decision-makers can work with the concepts of risk appetite, risk attitude and whole other set of risk-related terms to make good decisions in risky and important situations.
If you’re interested in the topic, let us know.
29 Nov
Posted by admin on Tuesday November 29th 2011, in Risky stuff
Peter and Ruth are working with a group of Shell project engineers, talking about decision-making in risky and important situations. We’re on the 30th floor of a hotel in Kuala Lumpur and – would you believe it – we looked out of the window and in an adjacent building – just next to the Petronas twin towers we see two guys walking on a ledge about 20 floors up, carrying a metal beam and without restraint of any kind. It was just like those pictures from New York 100 years ago. Puts a whole new slant on perception of risk and the choices some people make about their own safety. Our Shell colleague took pictures and has emailed the owner of the building to intervene. Hopefully some action will be taken to safeguard the lives of those men and people like them.
12 Nov
Posted by admin on Saturday November 12th 2011, in Consulting news, Learning events news
Those of you who are working closely with us know that back in April, Lucidus Consulting and SP Associates merged to form a single, exciting, consulting practice focused on managed change through programmes and projects.
We have a new website that lays out all our current products and services that as you will see operate at a number of levels.
We offer services for individuals (from coaching to training courses), for teams (from workshops to healthchecks) and for organisations (from process design to organisational change management).
We offer services for those who are ’starting out’ to those who are experienced professionals who want to hone their skills or make change in their workplace.
We are equally at home working in a ‘classroom’, working virtually using up to date media, or working ‘live’ – co-creating value with people in real time.
We hope you’re interested in finding out more about how we can help you.
Ruth, Sergio and Peter
11 Jul
Posted by admin on Monday July 11th 2011, in Uncategorized
Thank you to Elizabeth Harrin for featuring Ruth and Penny’s new book on her award winning blog – PM4Girls.
http://www.pm4girls.elizabeth-harrin.com/
01 Jul
Posted by admin on Friday July 1st 2011, in Consulting news
Our virtual risk summit starts on Monday 11th July.
It’s free.
Everyday you’ll be able to hear experts and practitioners talk about making risk management work – engaging people – exciting, not boring. You can listen at any time you like – really flexible.
Sign up to listen at www.makingriskwork.com
Or look at our specific facilitating risk website – www.facilitatingrisk.com
05 Jun
Posted by admin on Sunday June 5th 2011, in Consulting news
We wanted to share with you the experience of a major pharma company and the way they have embraced risk management as a ‘way of life’ is their organisation. Sounds like a distant dream I bet to some of you reading this – but in fact they made it look quite easy. The logic is compelling once leaders get it – it’s just that so many leaders don’t.
The organisation in question was determined that to gain benefits from risk management that it must be integrated into the business – so explicitly linked to decision-making and with (wait for it) – NO NEW MEETINGS – or anything else masquerading as a meeting such as a risk workshop. Instead existing meetings were used to do the risk-associated business alongside the other agenda items.
They found then, that facilitators (who were risk experts, but didn’t have a risk title) were invaluable in coordinating the efforts of multiple line managers who were all leading risk-based interventions, and producing and using risk-based information in their part of the business. Facilitators were used to coach and support line managers, and to ensure that learning spread across the organisation and was consolidated into processes and tools.
So – a challenging thought may be – how do you facilitate risk management: engaging others to identify, own and manage risk – without creating a whole new industry of meetings and workshops where risk is done. How can you work to help your organisation embed risk as a way of life?
We are interested in your experiences and thoughts – please do share them us.
You can also read Ruth’s new book, co-authored with Penny Pullan of Making Projects Work. You can order it on Amazon, or from the Gower Publications website – or via www.facilitatingrisk.com (where you can access a 35% discount if you order before 15th July).