The River called Forward

A river by nature and some principle beyond it finds itself streaming forward even when its loaded with so much trash and garbage! The river will never change its course because of its experience, what they have thrown into it and all that it has seen, rather it keeps running its course carrying the garbage forward.  .  . I have never seen a river change its course and flow backward!!

Forward in life means different things to different people at different stage of life. For some folks, its promotion at work, for some its a job, some new house, a new car, a new relationship, a new spouse, new baby and for some new opportunity, new link, new customer, new platform or a new  business idea! Sometimes it might be expansion on what exists, intensity or increased opportunities for application on what obtains and or complete creation of the new!!! 
It is important to identify at this time one or two things that will mean forward, then roam it, ponder and think it through. For me at this time, forward will mean a level of redefinition for me in a desirable aspect of career and building of new and wider platform to project my skills and self (this will unfold in the next few weeks😎. I am super excited! Just keep a tab on this space. Greater times are ahead for our blog and page).
So whats yours? Another month and quarter beckons
Anything new to embark on?
What will the #ForwardProject be for the next month or quarter?
What skills would you need to project? 
What part of self would you need to project?
THINK! ! !

#ForwardProject

Daily Drucker Recap . . .

The Daily Drucker Series post has finally come to a close for now. Many folks have asked me if I'm 'drunk on Drucker', sounds lyrical though. Perhaps I am. I will do a quick recap of my experience with the Hack-book posts, the feedback, the impressions from analytics of the posts on all our social media points.

*Please, note the impressions stated below are strictly personal opinion.

First: It is observable that everyone likes the mention of successful names which includes - Peter Drucker, known for something landmark in management.

Second: Most people appreciates intellectual discuss and knowledge at a certain level.

Third: Many people get bored seeing the same concept everytime no matter how important and beneficial it is, monotony dulls it out and reduces perceived value.

Fourth: Some people felt a disconnect with the fact that the author of the Daily post isn't African, and not in African context. It was also opined that the content of Daily Drucker might not be so applicable to this clime especially Nigeria. However, I differ on this; Success, Excellence and almost all positive values are governed by same principles irrespective of race, gender, colour of skin or geographical location

Fifth: Many people like free things, they even don't mind all the pages scanned on the blog for free. My copy is available for loan for a token 😎(Yes, Library business!). (Order your copy on amazon - Daily Drucker purchase on Amazon)

Sixth: The exercise gave me opportunity to share knowledge on social media consistently over a period of time. It was also an opportunity to exercise my "consistency muscle" on blogging. Learning to try new things with grit. 

This is rather on a lighter note, a friend of mine posted a very educating and inspiring video on her social media handle and she lamented bitterly how in less than 48 hours, the video views was already over a thousand, only one not click of like while on days she posts pictures of fashoinable self, she would have gotten a thousand clicks of like. As unpleasant as that may sound, its the reality of who we are which is far apart from who we need to become as a people with continuous learning culture. We need to be hungry for knowledge.
I'll conclude with Steve Jobs commencement address to the 2005 Stanford University set STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH

#SeriesOver

#Hangover

#StayHungry

#StayFoolish

Daily Drucker: Converting Strategic Plans to Action

13 March

The best plan is only good intentions unless it degenerates into work.

The distinction that marks a plan capable of producing results is the commitment of key people to work on specific tasks. Unless such commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes, but no plan. A plan needs to be tested by asking managers, "Which of your best people have you put on this work today?" The manager who comes back (as most of them do) and says, "But I can't spare my best people now. They have to finish what they are doing now before I can put them to work tomorrow," is simply admitting that he does not have a plan. 

Work implies accountability, a deadline, and finally, the measurement of results, that is, feedback from results on the work. What we measure and how we measure determine what will be considered relevant, and determine, thereby, not just what we see, but what we - and others do.

ACTION POINT: Establish specific numerical criteria and goals to measure results. Set deadlines for yourself and your organization to achieve these results.

#DailyDrucker

#StrategyToAction

Daily Drucker: The purpose of a Business

12 March

A business enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation

If we want to know what a business is, we have to start with its purpose. And the purpose must lie outside the business itself. Infact, it must lie in society, since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. The customer is the foundation of a business and keeps it in existence. He alone gives employment. And it is to supply the customer that society entrusts wealth-producing resources to the business enterprise. 

Because it is the purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two-and only two - basic functions: marketing and innovation. These are the entrepreneurial functions. Marketing is the distinguishing, the unique function of Business.

ACTION POINT: Find out what needs your customers want fulfilled today. Determine how well your products are meeting the needs of your customers.

#DailyDrucker

#PeterDrucker

#BusinessPurpose

Daily Drucker: Piloting Change

11 March

Neither studies nor market research nor computet modeling is a substitute for the test of reality.

Everything improved or new needs first to be tested on a small scale; that  is, it needs to be piloted. The way to do this is to find somebody within the enterprise who really wants the new. Everything new gets into trouble. And then it needs a champion. It needs somebody who says, "I am going to make this succeed," and who then goes to work on it. This needs not even be somebody within the organization. 

Often a good way to pilot a new product or new service is to find a customer who really wants the new, and who is willing to work with the producer on making truly successful the new product or the new service. If the pilot test is successful - it finds the problem nobody anticipated but also finds the opportunities that nobody anticipated, whether in terms of design, of market, of service - the risk of change is usually quite small.

ACTION POINT: Make sure the best ideas in your organization have fierce advocates to ser them through a test in the marketplace.

#DailyDrucker

#PeterDrucker

#DoTheChange

Daily Drucker Series:Searching for change

10 March

A change is something people do: a fad is something people talk about. 

Entrepreneurs see change as the norm and as healthy. Usually they do not bring about the change themselves. But - and this defines the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship - the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. 

Look at every change, look out every window. And ask: "Could this be an opportunity?". Is this new thing a genuine change or simply a fad?" The difference is very simple. A change is something people do, and a fad is something people talk about. An enormous amount of talk is a fad. You must also ask yourself if these transitions, these changes, are an opportunity or a threat. If you start out by looking at change as threat, you will never innovate. Don't dismiss something because this is not what you had planned. The unexpected is often the best source of innovation.

ACTION POINT: Take a half an hour to discuss with a colleague the changes sweeping your industry and identify the biggest genuine changes. Ignore the fads; figure out how to capitalize on the genuine changes.

#DailyDrucker

#PeterDrucker

#DoTheChange

Daily Drucker Series:Organize for Constant Change

9 March

Today's certainties always become tomorrow's absurdities.

One thing is certain for developed countries - and probably for the entire world - we face long years of profound changes. An organization must be organized for constant change. It will no longer be possible to consider entrepreneurial innovation as lying outside of management or even as peripheral to management. Entrepreneurial innovation will have to become the very heart and core of management. The organization's function is entrepreneurial, to put knowledge to work - on tools, products and processes; on the design of work; on knowledge itself. 

Deliberate emphasis on innovation may be needed most where technological changes are least spectacular. Everyone in a pharmaceutical company knows that the company's survival depends on its ability to replace three quarters of its products by entirely new ones every ten years. But how many people in an insurance company realize that the company's growth - perhaps even its survival - depends on the development of new forms of insurance? The less spectacular or prominent technological change is in a business, tbe greater the danger that the whole organization will ossify, and the more important, therefore, is the emphasis on innovation.

ACTION POINT: Are you and your organization in danger of ossification? Decide how you and your organizatipn can systematically innovate, and build this into your management process. 

#DailyDrucker

#PeterDrucker

#Organize4Change

#ChangeAsCoreForMgt

#Prepare4War

Woman: The Journey from 'Being' to 'Becoming'

As today marks the Women's International Day, I celebrate the humans whose body goes through dramatic changes as much as their minds, spirit and soul yet unbroken, unbent with so much grace. I celebrate every girl, lady, sister, diva, woman, aunty, mother, grandmother cutting accross all facet - old, young, weak and strong. 

The journey to being a woman did not just happen at birth with different body parts, rather its a journey of birth, being and becoming. Its an evolving walk, just like a discovery station that has many channels with each unravelling itself with so much fuss and fun.

From birth to cradle, then toddling, all through the teens, adulthood, womanhood and motherhood, all quite dramatic and eventful with varying levels of action and stunts.

A toast to all your animations, drama, your fervor, your grace, your gait, your strength, your warmth, your vibes and your zest.

Happy Women's International Day

"Being a female is by birth

Being a girl is by growth

Being a lady is by priming

Being a diva is by grooming

Being a mother is by providence

Being a woman is by choice

Being a matriach is by bravery

Being the best is by courage"

~ Bamike Fadipe

So grow, prime, groom, choose, brave up and be courageous. Celebrate yourself, love and pamper yourself on your journey from Being to Becoming.

#BeingWoman

#Womanhood

#Women'sIntlDay

#2018

Daily Drucker Series: Turbulence:Threat or Opportunity?

8 MARCH

When it rains manna from heaven, some people put up an umbrella. Others reach for a big spoon.

The manager will have to look at her task and ask, "What must I do to be prepared for danger, for opportunities, and above all for change?" 

First, this is a time to make sure that your organization is lean and can move fast. So this is a time when one systematically abandons and sloughs off unjustifiable products and activities - and sees to it that the really important tasks are adequately supported. 

Second, she will have to work on the most expensive of resources: time - particularly in areas where it is peoples's only resource, as it is for highly paid, important groups such as research workers, technical service staffs, and all managers. And one must set goals for productivity improvement. 

Third, managers must learn to manage growth and to distinguish among kinds of growth. If productivity of your combined resources goes up with growth, it is healthy growth. 

Fourth, the development of people will be far more crucial in the years ahead.

ACTION POINT: Get rid of unjustifiable products and activities, set goals to improve productivity, manage growth and develop your people.

#DailyDrucker

#PeterDrucker

#UmbrellaOrSpoon

Daily Drucker Series: Creating a True Whole

7 MARCH

Create a true whole greater than the sum of its parts.

A manager has the task of creating a true whole that is larger than the sum of its parts. One analogy is the task of the conductor of a symphony orchestra, through whose effort, vision and leadership individual instrumental parts become the living whole of a musical performance. But the conductor has the composer's score, he is only interpreter. The manager is both composer and conductor.

The task of creating a genuine whole also requires that the manager, in every one of her acts, consider simultaneously the performance and results of the enterprise as a whole and the diverse activities needed to achieve synchronised performance. It is here, perhaps, that the comparison with the orchestra conductor fits best. 

A conductor must always hear both the whole orchestra and, say, the second oboe. Similarly, a manager must always consider both the overall performance of the enterprise and say, the market-research activity needed. By raising the performance of the whole, she creates scope and challenge for market research. By improving the performance of market research, she makes possible better overall business results. The manager must simultaneously ask two double-barreled questions: "What better business performance is needed and what does this require of what activities?" And "What better performances are the activities capable of and what improvement in business results will they make possible?"

ACTION POINT: Have you composed your symphony? Has your boss composed his or hers? Have you begun rehearsals with your players yet? Can you hear the second oboe? Are you ready for Carnegie Hall

#DailyDrucker
#PeterDrucker
#Whole>Sum

Daily Drucker Series:Innovation and Risk Taking

Dont take risks, Hunt for opportunities and catch them. There is nothing like entrepreneurs personality: they are not risk-takers but opportunity-hunters.

6 MARCH

Successful innovators are conservative

I once attended a university symposium on entrepreneurship at which a number of psychologists spoke. Although their papers disagreed on everything else, they all talked about an "entrepreneurial personality" which was characterized by a "propensity for risk taking". A well known and successful innovator and entrepreneur who had built a process-based innovation into a substantial worldwide business in the space of twenty-five years was then asked to comment. He said: "I find myself baffled by your papers. I think I know as many successful innovators and entrepreneurs as anyone, beginning with myself. I have never come accross an 'entrepreneurial personality'. The successful ones I know all have, however, one thing - and only one thing - in common: they are not 'risk takers'. They try to define the risks they have to take and to minimize them as much as possible. Otherwise none of us could have succeeded". 

This jibes with my own experience. I, too, know a good many successful entrepreneurs. Not one of them has a "propensity for risk taking". Most successful innovators in real life are colorless figures, and much more likely to spend hours on cash flow projections than to dash off looking for "risks". They are not "risk-focussed"; they are "opportunity-focused.

ACTION POINT: Determine which of your ideas presents the least risk and the most opportunity and focus on them.

#DailyDrucker

#PeterDrucker

#HuntOpportunities

#DontTakeRisks

Daily Drucker: Managing for the Future

5 MARCH

Prediction of future events is futile

The starting point to know the future is the realization that there are two different, though complementary, approaches:

▪ Finding and exploiting the time lag between the appearance of a discontinuity in the economy and society and its full impact-one might call this anticipation of a future that has already happened.

▪ Imposing on the yet unborn future a new idea that tries to give direction and shape to what is to come. Thid one might call making the future happen.

The future that has already happened is not within the present business; it is outside: a change in society, knowledge, culture, industry or economic structure. It is, moreover, a major trend, a break in the pattern rather than a variation within it. Looking for the future that has already happened and anticipating its impacts introduces new perception in the beholder.

The need is to make oneself see it. What then could or should be done is usually not too difficult to discover. The opportunities are neither remote nor obscure. The pattern has to be recognized first. 

Predicting the future can only get you in trouble. The task is to manage what is there and to work to create what could and should be.

ACTION POINT: Spot a discontinuity in the economy or society that has appreared and presents an opportunity for your enterprise. Determine how long it will take for this change to impact the business. Develop a business plan to cash in on this insight.

#DailyDrucker
#DruckerSeries
#TheFuture

Daily Drucker Series: In Innovation, emphasize the Big Idea

The journey into ideas and innovating always start with what and why? If it doesnt work, create another.  .  .

4 MARCH

Innovative ideas are like frogs' eggs: of a thousand hatched, only one or two survive to maturity.

The innovative organization understands that innovation starts with an idea. Ideas are somewhat like babies- they are born small, immature and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfullment. In the innovative organization executives do not say, "This is a damn-fool idea". Instead they ask, "What would be needed to make this embryonic, half-baked, foolish idea into something that makes sense, that is feasible, that is an opportunity for us?"

But an innovative organization also knows that the great majority of ideas will turn out not to make sense. Executives in innovative organizations therefore demand that people with ideas think through the work needed to turn an idea into a product, a process, a business or a technology. They ask, "What work should we have to do and what would we have to find out and learn before we can commit the company to this idea of yours?" These executives know that it is as difficult and risky to convert a small idea into successful reality as it is to make a major innovation. They do not aim at "improvements" or "modifications" in products or technology. They aim at innovating a new business.

ACTION POINT: Make a list of your three best ideas. Then make a list of the key pieces of information you need to know and the major work that needs to be done before these ideas can blossom into a new business. Now pursue the best idea, or if none is practical, start again!

#DailyDrucker

#DruckerSeries

#PeterDrucker

#Insights

#Ideas

The Drucker Series: Knowledge external to the enterprise

3 MARCH

Knowledge external to the enterprise

The technologies that are likely to have the greatest impact on a company and an industry are technologies outside its own field.

Many changes that have transformed enterprises have originated outside the specific industry of that enterprise. Here are three notable examples. The zipper was originally intended to close bales of heavy goods such as grain, particularly in seaports. Nobody thought of using it for clothing. The clothing industry did not think it could replace buttons. And the inventor never dreamed it would be successful in the clothing industry.

Commercial paper (that is, short term notes originated by nonbank financial institutions) and did not originate with banks, but had a tremendous negative impact on them. Under US law, commercial paper is considered a security, which means that commercial banks cannot deal in it. Because financial services companies, such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, GE Capital, and so on, discovered this, they have largely replaced commercial banks as the worlds most important and leading financial instutions. Fiberglass cable, the invention that has revolutionised the telephone industry, did not come out of the great telephone research labs in the US, Japan or Germany. It came, rather, from a glass company, Corning.

ACTION POINT: Identify at least one change that has originated outside your industry that either has transformed or has the potential to transform your enterprise. Look for ideas in other industries that can be used profitably in your industry.

#DailyDrucker

#PeterDrucker

#Insights

The Daily Drucker Series: Test of Innovation

The Drucker Series continues.  .  .

Before you start the read, innovation is not only for organizations, even our individual lives need to be recreated to add value to our world. This journey is never ending. So, enjoy your read. . .

2 MARCH

Test of Innovation

Measure Innovation by what they contribute to market and customer

The test of an innovation is whether it creates value. Innovation means the creation of new value and new satisfaction for the customer. A novelty only creates amusement. Yet, again and again, management decide to innovate for no other reason than that they are bored with doing the same thing or making the same product day in and day out. The test of an innovation, as well as the test of "quality" is not "Do we like it"? It is "Do customers want it and will they pay fot it"?

Organizations measure informations not by their scientific or technological importance but by what they contribute to market and customer. They consider social innovation to be as important as technological innovation. Installment sellingbmay have had a greater impact on economics and markets than most of the great scientific advances in this century.

DRUCKER ACTION POINT: Identify innovations in your organization that are novelties versus those that are creating value. Did you launch the novelties because you were bored with doing the same thing? If so, make sure your next new product or service meets your customers' needs.

#DruckerSeries

#DailyDrucker

#PeterDrucker

Daily Drucker: The Change Leader

Going through my library, I stumbled on an old favourite - a management devotional full of insights and motivation by Peter F. Drucker The Daily Drucker 

The book remains an all-time inspiration with great management insights distilled into short and sharp daily devotional and tips. The Daily Drucker is excerpts of Thirty-Four books (34) with Sixty-Five years experience (65). This makes it particularly more compelling to read.

Come with us as we dig from the well of knowledge of this guru:-

1 MARCH

The Change Leader

One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it. In a period of upheavals, such as the one we are living in, change is the norm. To be sure, it is painful and risky, and above all it requires a great deal of very hard work. But unless it is seen as the task of the organization to lead change, the organizatiom will not survive. In a period of rapid structural change, the only ones who survive are the changr leaders. A change leader sees change as an opporrtunity. A change leader looks for change, knows how to find the right changes, and knows how to make them effective both outside the organization and inside it. To make the future is highly risky. It is less risky, however, than not to try to make it. A goodly proportion of those attempting to will surely not succeed. But predictably, no one else will.

DRUCKER'S ACTION POINT: Anticipate the future and be a chnage leader