Blog
5 ways culture increases company valuation
This post presents an infographic, explaining 5 ways culture increases company valuation. Especially relevant to potential high growth businesses, it outlines several ways you can look to increase your valuation, while making your company a more enjoyable and future proof place to work. This should be of interest to owner founders of early stage and […]
How your growth challenges change
As businesses grow they often experience different growth challenges at different stages. When I have helped businesses like My Baby Sleep Coach to start-up, the challenge is more around getting the fundamentals in place. What is is vision our purpose? Who are our ideal customers. What should our product/service set look like. As businesses develop […]
How Emma nailed her new business plan
Emma is starting a new business called “My Baby Sleep Coach”. It is a fantastic new venture. Today we worked on her business plan. This is how she describes her business purpose. “I aim to work in partnership with my clients to help them identify achievable and realistic solutions to their baby’s sleep difficulties so […]
Missed targets? Better check your AIM!
5-minute read. Regular readers of my articles (thanks Mum) know that I like to start with a little anecdote, something that has some tenuous link to the content that follows. I’m struggling a bit this week. But here goes. If I was to ask you, “What is the magic number?” Many of you would say, […]
Leadership Lessons from LUBS
3 learnings from my visit to LUBS Great day exploring leadership both theoretically and practically, with a set of final year students at LUBS today. It’s always fascinating and heartening* to talk to the students at LUBS, many who had just come back from a year on an industrial placement. We were discussing leadership on […]
3 Secrets for Rapid Business Growth
5-minute read. Secret 1 – compounding small improvements leads to big wins. If you are a similar age to me and from the UK, you may recall NatWest’s “Pigaro” piggy bank series in the early 80s (video of the advert on You Tube). Save enough money (with NatWest bank rather than your piggy bank) and […]
Speaking and exhibiting at Brand Yorkshire
I will be covering “The Power of Purpose” and its importance to team performance at Harrogate.
Paul on the Next 100 Days Podcast
I was delighted to be interviewed for the excellent Next 100 Days Podcast. Follow the link and listen to hear more about: How my consultancy career started in a brewery! Why I came to LOVE working with small and medium fast-growing businesses. What I’ve learnt from helping businesses to grow. Where you can access 21 […]
A modular approach to growth consultancy
Growth Consultancy Our growth consultancy approach is based on Growth Sprints. These are delivered as part of our Ready? Plan. Grow! approach. Each Growth Sprint is a well-defined activity. Therefore, your Growth Map defines what you are trying to achieve, and which sprints will be relevant. As a result, your Growth Map will also indicate some […]
Have You Discovered the Formula for Business Growth Yet?
At school, maths wasn’t my favourite subject. I think that had a little to do with the teachers and a lot to do with what I considered to be “cool subjects” back then! However, one of the things that stuck with me was the power of compound interest. If you are a similar age to me […]
What is the Best Approach to Grow My Business?
Spend a few hours searching the web asking, “What is the Best Approach to Grow My Business?” and you will find that there several types of growth approach. In this short article, we compare and contrast approaches, and recommend a way forward. What are the Main Approaches to Grow My Business? #1 Recipes They advocate that […]
Ready? Plan. Grow!
We have taken two-decades of experience as consultants and coaches to big businesses – companies like Estee Lauder, GSK, Shell, VELUX, Zurich Life, General Motors – and combined it with extensive research and our own entrepreneurial experience of what drives rapid business growth. Then we have made this meaningful and accessible for businesses that may not […]
Six Common Strategy Mistakes to Avoid
Many businesses experience early growth on the back of a strong product/service and committed leadership. But as the business grows and becomes more complex, barriers to growth start to emerge. Some of these could be due to one of the six common strategy mistakes, to avoid when you can. Maybe what you have, isn’t working. It […]
Business Behaviour Change – Five Lessons from Splitting My Trousers
Several years ago my wife diplomatically pointed out that I was getting a bit heavy. The section of my wardrobe filled with clothes that were, shall we say a little bit “pinchy”, seemed to agree with her – especially my favourite jeans! Then crawling underneath a customer’s desk to plug in my laptop, the rending […]
Change the Way Other People do Things
Changing yourself can be hard enough, but to change the way other people do things at work is even harder. In this short article, I’ve outlined some of the best approaches (IMHO). Make it clear what a change in behaviour means in practical terms. When Marks and Spencer wanted to truly cement their focus on […]
7 Tips for Communicating Changes
Communicating changes effectively is a challenge! We’ve all been stuck on a train. Now imagine that the conductor announces this, “Ladies and gentlemen, very sorry for the delay. I’m not sure why we are being delayed. I’m not sure how long the delay will be. I can’t promise when I will have more information. I may (or […]
Business Name – 3 Tips from the Shed
What’s in a Business Name? Finding your perfect business name is a lot of fun, but it can also be frustrating. Here’s how we named our consultancy company “The Change Shed”. We spent a lot of time thinking about our business name. Looking for options. Checking the URLs. Checking Companies House for similar business names. Deliberating over […]
Which Change Management Approach Should We Use?
What is a change management approach? Put simply, these are structured ways of helping people change by moving from being unaware, to aware, to understanding and eventually accepting (or resisting) a change. Every large consultancy either has its own home-grown change management approach or uses one of the popular approaches from the academic/business community. That’s why working […]
What do I need to get right to grow my business?
Agile, future proof businesses are well-positioned to compete with bigger businesses or to compete effectively with other SMEs, to become key parts of bigger businesses’ supply chains. You are able to make quick decisions, and you really care. With access to the right kind of help, small and medium-sized businesses can transform their growth, bringing […]
Support for Your Biggest Change Management Challenges
You are trying to drive through a significant organisational change. It will transform large parts of your company, and yet change management challenges are rarely straightforward. The stakeholder situation is complex. There are many and varying levels of employee awareness, understanding and engagement with and the changes you’re trying to achieve. What’s more, the nature of […]
Challenging change questions
The challenging change questions that we help with usually fall into one of several kinds. Leadership versus management There is still debate about the differences between leadership and management. However, one thing is clear, successful businesses need both – they are definitely not interchangeable! We will help define your vision for leadership. Then we can […]