| Issue 15, September 2003 |
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This is m-news, M Power's monthly e-newsletter. We hope you enjoy reading it. M Power is a communication, consulting and training company. m-news includes information about related themes - six quick snippets about business, organisational and individual effectiveness, communication and public relations. Communication empowers. Karen Morath, managing director, M Power The ‘quick six’ for September are
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1. Four tips for building a better campaign or company Joe Trippi, a US internet businessman turned political campaign manager offers four tips for building a better campaign or company. 1. Design the organisation to be nimble from the start. A decentralised workforce can respond to local challenges more quickly if it doesn't have to wait for clearance from higher up the food chain. Be willing to let go of total control. 2. Find ways to let customers - or supporters - talk to each other. Make it easy to connect and then step out of the equation. 3. Encourage ways for ideas to bubble up from the field. Understand that the more brainpower that is applied to a problem, the better the solution. Unleash the power of the people to be creative. 4.
Recognise that it's not about the technology. True, you need a basic
level of technical sophistication to make things work, but the
technology should serve the idea, not the other way around. | |
| 2. A quote we like | |
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"Make no small plans. For they have no power to stir the blood." Source - Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846 - 1912) American Architect from Chicago. | |
| 3. The ongoing search for excellence | |
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Tom Peters, the US management consultant turned author turned guru, was in town recently espousing his latest views on the world of organisational life (aka flogging his latest book). He seems to be continuing his 'search for excellence' and his latest view turned some of our own thinking on its side. He no longer believes in 'kaizen' or continuous improvement, which is something that underpins all that we do at M Power. He says incremental improvement won't cut it. Organisations need to constantly transform themselves to keep ahead of the pace. On reflection, that's what underpins all we do at M Power. Hence the title of his new book - Re-Imagine. We can hardly wait for its publication in mid October. | |
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| 4. Gratuitous plug | |
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M Power has strengthened its consulting team with a number of new appointments. We have never been better resourced to meet the communication needs of your organisation. Please call us on 9510 2592 if you would like to discuss how communication could empower your organisation. | |
| 5. Funny execs earn more | |
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A Harvard Business Review study has shown that the wittier an executive is, the higher is his or her income and bonuses. Executives ranked the best performers used humour a mean of 17.8 times per hour, compared to the average 7.5 times per hour. Used skilfully, humour reduces hostility, deflects criticism, relieves tension, improves morale and helps communicate difficult messages. Source - The Boss Squad, 2003 True Leaders by Catherine Fox, Boss Magazine, Australian Financial Review, August 2003. | |
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| 6. This month's book review | |
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Creative leaps,
10 lessons in effective advertising inspired at Saatchi and Saatchi, by
Michael Newman, John Wiley and Sons, Singapore 2003. On the face of it, this book is about advertising and therefore not of general appeal to the business book reading audience. But the more you get into it, the more it offers. It
is a book about being different, having the courage to have big ideas,
to be humorous, to work together, to follow your gut instincts (it's
called superlogic!), to say to think outside the square would be too
pedestrian a concept for the quality of the thinking in the book, but
you get what I mean. This book is hot off the presses and at 400
pages plus a CD (but wait, there's more....), it takes some reading but
rewards the effort. If you are half interested in advertising,
branding or communicating great ideas, it's about as good as I've read
and despite its weightiness, I think people in organisations everywhere
would take something worthwhile out of it. Wordsmiths will love
the author's biog on the dustcover. The line "Michael now lives and
writes in a small cliff-top cottage on Sydney's northern beaches, where
he overlooks the Pacific Ocean, his credit card bills and numerous
deadlines" reminds us of the role of humour in ...pretty well
everything ideally. To buy Creative Leaps from Amazon click here.
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