TRAIN

Everyone knows that a ‘bottom line’ is sometimes nothing more than a ‘bottom lie’. Managers can manipulate corporate results to the extent that their ethics will stretch. Contrary to traditional methods and beliefs that focus on the bottom line, it is what ‘comes in’ that matters most. Hence, managers should focus on the top line. The funnels that contribute to the top line are staff, quality, and customers. These three aspects constitute the ‘triple top line’.

Isn’t it amazing how people stand at the sidelines and wonder why and how smart operators seem to spring up to lead the way and cave new industries? Managers wonder why they were not the ones who thought of Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay. Yet, it is doubtful that they would have had the perceptivity to spot a star in the making.

Our executive excellence programs take managers for a period of six months and helps them to hone their skills of inquiry. Jonar helps managers and business leaders to engage in weekly exercises that keep managers thinking like entrepreneurs.

It seems that the grass is greener on the other side. It seems that other people innovate with ease. This training program shows managers how to remain vibrant, not so that they can spot the next stellar performer, but so that they can lead their industry though stealth-like advances that solidify an organisation as one for whom excellence is not an aspiration, but a daily routine. Do your people know how to execute projects with excellence?

Excellence is not only concerned with precision. It contributes to better profits because it enables a team to execute a strategy properly, the first time. It is a little known fact (albeit simple to work out) that most organisations lose untold profits due to sloppy work, whereby things have to be done, refunded, re-ordered, re-check, re-tested, re-sent, and re-installed. If only people did, what they were supposed to do, properly, their first time, and only once!

Do people like change? Jonar advocates that people love change. People like innovation. They enjoy variety. They appreciate improved dental procedures and they are grateful for advancements in medical science. They devour new flavours and new music. In fact, we all seek new experiences and we desire to discover information, love, and ways to get closer to our dreams.

People do not like to change from what they know works, to that which they can bet their bottom-dollar would not work. People welcome change. It’s the broken promises they dislike — along with endless rhetoric that they know, from years of experience, will not live up to expectations.

Don’t subject your workforce to anything that is not thoroughly tested and completely robust. If you are forced to work with untested systems, then isolate the systems so that they do not spread to contaminate your environment.

People love change if it delivers on its promise. They hate change that is unpredictable, inconvenient, unstable, and erratic.

Change management does not refer to the once-per-five-years wholesale reform. Such huge chunks rarely work. Managing change means to engineer daily change, so that every day is a day of growth, experimentation, and implementation of improved products, services, systems, and procedures. Change management is all about a culture weeding, sowing, and reaping.

By the way, we train your managers in the skill of change management, because we do not think that it can ever work to bring consultants to do it for you. We would rather train the responsible managers so that they can work out what needs to be done, rather than come in and dictate what needs to be changed. The former contributes to ownership and excitement. The latter leads to confusion and resentment, if not mutiny.

CEOs are finding it difficult to attract top talent. Many are concerned about a supposed brain-drain. At Logictivity, we believe that it is better to make geniuses than to hire geniuses. Jonar says:

‘Do the world’s leading organisations lay claim to having hired the world’s leading employees? Do high-performing businesses employ high-performing people? It would be easy, albeit erroneous, to agree with these statements.

‘Don’t think that excellent organisations employ excellent people. Most of us are average people. This is not a slur on the human race. There is nothing wrong with being an average person. Managers would do well to learn how to work with average people, and resist the search for geniuses. One of their important challenges is to harness extraordinary results from ordinary people.

‘Managers should stop trying to employ brilliant people. Instead, they would do well to focus on injecting the winning spirit so that their existing employees can do brilliant things. Additionally, how employees interact with each other will determine the fruits of their labour. An organisation’s tangible assets, such as technology and cash, are less potent than the intangible assets, such as atmosphere and attitude.’

At Logictivity, we believe that it is much better to make winners, than to find winners. To that end, our clients engage us to assist them to train and develop executives in a wide range of areas.

If you have staff members and managers with obvious potential, yet you are concerned about their trajectory, we can assist you to keep them on the straight-and-narrow so that they can realise their true potential as focussed experts who develop a love for learning, and an appreciation for sharing their talent with their colleagues.

While some might speak of that illusive word called ‘culture’, organisations must define ‘conduct’. It is conduct from whence customs emerge. Thereafter, entrenched customs form the culture.

From this, you will see that if you want to fix culture, you must start by looking at the actions that form habits. Habits turn into conduct, and these later become known as culture.

Our consultants can assist you to assess your corporate culture, and suggest ways to improve it (if improvement is needed).

Our work goes beyond surveys and pep-talks, but tries to locate the roots of the cultural problems.

It is fascinating to hear how many times the concept of ‘fun’ is bandied about. It has even crept into the annual business plan and mission-statement-of-the-month. Many organisations desire to have fun, yet they only speak about it and rarely activate it.

Fun, like culture, is not something that can be articulated. For example, one cannot go to one’s spouse and say, ‘Let’s love each other.’ It is not something that can be stipulated. It would be like saying, ‘I am about to tell you a joke, and you will find it funny’. Such words are superfluous. The best that one can do is to tell a good joke, and if it is good enough, people will laugh. Like humour, fun is not something that can be stipulated. It either is a lively ingredient within the corporate culture or it is not.

If you desire to engender fun and excitement within your organisation, and if you truly desire to remove the unwholesome elements that destroy confidence, we might be able to help you to structure a well-balanced healthy organisation that flushes out alien behaviour.

Keep in mind that actions become habits that become invisible and permissible. Left unchallenged, they become the norm. If you wish to improve your culture, you need to education your people in two areas. First, you must tell them what you want them to do. Second, you must tell them what to do about those who deviate. Unless we are told how to handle recalcitrant operators, we will lose because negative elements, if not stopped in their tracks, will dominate and suffocate an entire organisation.

In our Western world, we have moved away from the benefits of having community-based or family-based elders and sages. That’s the unfortunate price that we have had to pay for the fast paced work environment, for our mobility, and for our changing social and family structures.

Despite this vacuum, we believe that managers need time to pause and reflect, to chat, and to be free to ask questions that are not immediately pertinent to their current projects. A healthy organisation values silence. It encourages people to stop and ponder. It supports managers who have perplexing questions or who are in a quandary.

Next time you are in a meeting, observe how it is most uncomfortable to endure silence. It is rare for managers sit back and ponder, or to seek counsel from each other. The competitive nature of their work, and the one-upmanship that plagues groups, saps energy.

In this day and age, it is necessary for organisations to accept the fact that people need to step back from their work environment and engage in serious debates, healthy question-time, and general contemplation.

Those who are overwhelmed tend to find solace in conferences that promote golf or other leisure activities. Our Campfire Conversations are not concerned with leisure. We focus on personal growth that can help managers to think more clearly, act more compassionately, strike more forcefully, apply themselves more diligently, and work within a good personal balance of daring and cunning, and wisdom and peace.

Our programs might well include discussions around a real campfire. However, this is only a metaphor. We engage in such discussions anywhere that we can be uninterrupted. The duration of each session might last a few hours, or a few days, depending on the desired outcome.

Our ‘Walk in the park’ programs are designed for the most senior of executives, usually from large multinationals who need to step out of the office and contemplate their next major task. We team executives (usually CEOs and chairs of organisations) with counsels who can listen, motivate, inspire, or challenge, all in an informal, non-threatening manner.

All our work is done in the strictest confidence. Absolutely no-one will ever know that we are working with you.

Again, the ‘Walk in the park’ program often does result in long walks. We have clients who prefer to jog. Others feel more comfortable on the golf course. However, the majority of our clients feel more comfortable to meet at their own home, aboard their yacht, or over a Sunday lunch.

As part of our community service program, we undertake to assist two young students every quarter. Students who believe that they have exceptional talent but need a mentor to assist them to start their journey on the right foot, are welcome to apply for our ‘Mentoring for students’ program. This is a fee-based program that provides a discount of 90% for a three-month period.

Mentoring often pertains to career and academic development, but could be broader than that, depending on the requirements.

Another of our community service programs is to provide advice to new authors. If you have never been published, and you need some expert advice about your ideas, and how to go about presenting yourself to publishers, we can assist you through a short-term mentoring program. This is a fee-based program that provides a discount of 90% for a three-month period. We can only accommodate two authors per quarter.

New authors who are serious about their work, but need some guidance, find this level of interaction useful and challenging. It is not easy to be a successful author. It takes more than a brilliant manuscript. We can provide you with the necessary tips and ideas that can put you on the right path. Please note that we are neither a manuscript assessment centre nor literary agents. However, our experience in the publishing industry is invaluable to new authors who need some guidance.

In the heat of battle, our clients are more comfortable in the knowledge that they can pick up the phone and have a chat about a new opportunity, an emerging crisis, or a perplexing situation.

Our phone support consultants can listen or advise, or put you in touch with others who might be able to assist you. Alternatively, they can be entrusted with a sensitive task. They will undertake the appropriate investigation, and respond with a comprehensive list of options. This service crosses between our coaching and mentoring programs, and is akin to a confidential Corporate Concierge program.

Although this service caters for impromptu needs, it is only available to clients who have a long-term contract with us because it works best when our consultants and your executives have a close working relationship.

This service is like having experts on tap. While driving to your next meeting, you can make a call and chat about an emerging issue, and send us off to conduct some research for you, so that by the time you reach your meeting, you will be armed with some of the right questions that you need to ask. This would let everyone know that you have done your homework.

Since opening our doors in 1999, Logictivity has never had two clients who had the same requirements. All our work is highly customised. Every month we find it necessary to provide a new range of services to meet the market demands, brought about as a result of tumultuous markets and hectic industries that provide challenges and opportunities at every turn.

At Logictivity, we are always innovating to bring you poignant training modules and leading-edge training services to assist you to confront the issues with confidence.

Our aim is to help executives and leaders to remain poised to tackle the numerous challenges that come at them on a daily basis. Our network of experts and consultants, led by Jonar Nader, are years ahead of the game.

In fact, for every year during the past ten years, Jonar has been outlining the roadmap for success. He is always five years ahead of the pack. So much so, that many people doubt his advice and predictions. Invariably, they realise that he was spot-on. Jonar’s predictions and market strategies have always been made public years before the masses twig to what is going on. The astute who heed his advice tend to benefit from the forewarning, and this foresight is what keeps our clients coming back.

If you would like to explore how our training programs can give you an edge, please contact us.