The trick maths question back around mid-primary school is about squares and rectangles – both are defined by having four sides, two sets of parallel sides, and four corners of 90º. But squares have one more feature, crucial to the definition – all sides are the same length. So all squares are rectangles but not…
Clarifying consensus
Possibly the most frequent question put to us is “if we don’t have consent amongst the board, how can we move forward?” For the largest part, this speaks to a very common misunderstanding that we strike in our work – about the meaning of consensus in a decision making process. Part of the difficulty is…
Coffee on the road: count the cups!
We had the pleasure this week of receiving a whole bunch of nice messages from clients and colleagues on reaching a milestone to which many a small business aspires – 15 years of work together! It doesn’t seem that long until we take a look back over the kaleidoscope of projects that we have had…
Sabbatical postcard – board decisions, how hard can they be anyhow?
Today brings another round of ‘journalism’ telling us that we live in a time of more information than ever before, and yet more social media messages urging us to think there is no mystery that can’t be solved if we google it hard enough or crowd-source the problem to enough people in enough places. That’s…
Coffee on the road: Enough! on April fools day
In an era of populism writ large in global events, seen equally in ‘any-opinion-will-do-if-I-shout-it-loud-enough’ leadership and public debate that often seems to have only a passing acquaintance with facts and reasoned logic, many of our clients and colleagues on boards are facing quite tough times in holding the line on more mature and considerate leadership….
Sabbatical postcard – lies, damned lies and statistics v2.0
What the numbers really say is an issue at least as old as published statistics themselves, but one finding a renaissance in the world of the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016: ‘post-truth’.* Anyone who has spent more than five minutes in a commercial organisation knows, for example, that it is possible to have both…
Coffee on the road – our word for the year
Big surprise – no, really, an actual surprise – our word for 2017 is not ‘coffee’! This year we are going public with our choice to applaud all those mature decision makers who know when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when to walk off into the sunset for the next challenge –…
Implementing legislation
Client: Board & Chief Executive Officer, Nature Conservation Trust of NSW Our new client is a bespoke entity – a statutory body corporate also operating as a nonprofit organisation with deductible gift recipient status for tax purposes. In a new direction for the organisation’s objects of nature conservation on private land, the organisation is now…
Coffee on the road – what a difference an accent makes!
We might not be much given to knitting our own yoghurt or weaving muesli here at ThinkEvans, but we are pretty darn serious about sustainability. For us its about being able to keep your promises to stakeholders – not just this week or next week, but next month and next year and the year after…
Sabbatical postcard – kawhe i runga i te ara i roto i Aotearoa
Kawhe i runga i te ara i roto i Aotearoa – or coffee on the way in New Zealand – prompts fresh reflection on the microeconomic importance of engaging with fellow human beings, and the “innovation” value of just getting the basics right. In Wellington to present an element of my PhD research (to…
Sabbatical postcard – no time to wish for coffee
A self-confessed cynic about process improvement, which too often fails from want of a clear objective, I am delighted to report a customer service experience that seems to shine as an exception. It was so fast and efficient there was no time to wish for a coffee while waiting in line for service! The early indications…
Sabbatical postcard … coffee on the side road
Years of consulting does develop fantastic time management skills – so being on sabbatical from consulting to work full tilt at PhD research, on accountability of the UN Security Council, still leaves time for a side trip to other aspects of my long, long standing work on decision making and governance! For some months I…
Coffee on the (side) road …
On sabbatical from consulting and deep in the world of academe, in her guise as a higher degree research student Carolyn Evans has returned to her microeconomic roots – taking a side road on something of a busman’s holiday from the hard slog of writing her PhD thesis. One of the co-authors of a report…
Rethinking pricing
Client: Chief Executive, Coast City Country General Practice Training Ltd In a new project for our client, we will apply microeconomic disciplines to their pricing of services, including sensitivity analysis around key events. Sunset at Mollymook, in the far south of this client’s area of operations, is a great inspiration!