by Stuart Cross | Aug 1, 2014 | Announcements, Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: At the end of a particularly long and gruelling strategy meeting a CEO once turned to me and said, “In a few years time people will laugh at us for developing three-year plans.” He was right. Most long-term plans last about as long as an ice...
by Stuart Cross | Jun 17, 2014 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: I am working with several clients that are driving major changes to their customer offer and organisation. Communication is critical: the leadership teams want their people to understand why the changes are necessary and what new goals and...
by Stuart Cross | Mar 25, 2014 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: I don’t particularly look forward to writing. This week, for instance, I have yet again put off writing this Friday Focus until 30 minutes before it is due out. Even worse, I am currently writing a new book, which is a little ironically called First...
by Stuart Cross | Mar 17, 2014 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: I was talking to the CEO of a highly successful company this week who was lamenting the fact that although the business was growing and profitable, he wasn’t entirely sure why. “What we need,” he told me “is to fully understand our recipe for...
by Stuart Cross | Feb 21, 2014 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: I am spending the week in France, skiing with my family and friends. To be honest, as an intermediate skier, my technical ability has not improved much in years. I stick to the runs I know I can master and, with a vivid understanding of the risks,...
by Stuart Cross | Feb 7, 2014 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: Scottish nationalists may not win the vote on independence, but they are winning the campaign. By painting a vivid picture of a positive and brighter future, Alex Salmond and his team’s approach is in sharp contrast to the “Better Together”...
by Stuart Cross | Feb 2, 2014 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: I read somewhere that 90% of all the data that has ever been generated was created in the last two years. You now have an almost unlimited supply of data about your customers, both quantitative – purchasing behaviours, researched attitudes and wider...
by Stuart Cross | Jan 3, 2014 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: I have now been running my consulting business for seven years, and one of my biggest lessons has been the massive importance of perseverance to success. New ideas and initiatives rarely work immediately, but require a strong commitment to succeed,...
by Stuart Cross | Nov 25, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: President Obama is unwittingly giving us some great lessons in leadership. The one truly significant achievement of his first term in office was the reform of healthcare. But this achievement is now being seriously, if not fatally, undermined by the...
by Stuart Cross | Nov 18, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: It takes a photon of light just eight minutes to travel the 150 million km from the sun through the vacuum of space to the earth. Yet it takes that same photon 10,000 years to travel the 500,000 km from the sun’s core to its surface. The density of...
by Stuart Cross | Nov 8, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: Which strategies get implemented? The answer is simple: the strategies that are subject to follow through from the chief executive or the organisation’s leader. It’s not those with the most thorough and detailed plans, those with most...
by Stuart Cross | Nov 1, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: Has annual planning run its course? An NHS client has been asked to put forward a 5-year plan to the authorities, and my multinational clients still undertake a 3-year planning process. The trouble is none of the managers believe any of their...
by Stuart Cross | Oct 28, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: As part of a new book that I’m writing for publication next year, I have been looking at why there is such a difference between those companies that are fast, agile and able to rapidly exploit new opportunities in their market, and those that...
by Stuart Cross | Oct 21, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: A fellow and very capable Under 8 football coach called me this week to complain that some of his parents wanted to take their children away from his club because they didn’t think the team were winning enough matches. Never mind that our...
by Stuart Cross | Oct 21, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: Every Thursday and Saturday I coach a local U8 football team. When we play games against other teams I share three ‘rules’ with the children. Rule #3 is to make sure that they show their skills, Rule #2 is to have fun, and Rule #1 is this:...
by Stuart Cross | Oct 21, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: When I was at school we received our school report in June or July, which was followed by a parents’ evening. My eldest son has just started high school and yesterday, three weeks later, we visited his form tutor for an initial update and...
by Stuart Cross | Oct 21, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: It’s now seven years since I launched my consulting business. Over that time I’ve had the good fortune to work with some great people from market-leading organisations including Alliance Boots, Avon, GSK and Sealed Air, as well as many other...
by Stuart Cross | Sep 20, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: In an interview earlier this week the Pope has warned that the Catholic Church is too focused on doctrines. He said the Church had become tied up in “small-minded rules” and risked losing its true moral purpose. Similarly, the evidence in the...
by Stuart Cross | Sep 9, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: I’m beginning to think that there must be a training school for UK politicians that focuses on how to cock up major IT projects. Following debacles with NHS systems, air traffic control and passport control, it’s now been reported that the...
by Stuart Cross | Aug 30, 2013 | Stuart's Five Minute Friday Focus
This week’s focus: I never realised how annoying wallets were until I came across the company, Bellroy. I inadvertently clicked onto their website last week and was immediately captivated by how I could get rid of the clutter in my wallet, reduce its bulk and...
