In the last few months I have come across numerous examples of employees who, as a result of a planned restructuring of the organisation in which they work, feel they will be losing out. They expect to suffer from woes such as diminished seniority, influence, control and prestige — even redundancy, while more practically also […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/mike1.jpg400306artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-08-16 08:27:102018-08-16 08:27:10Involve staff in layoff plan to ease feelings
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to be a panelist on NTV’s am Live Friday morning Leadership Forum, and when anchor Debarl Inea told me the theme would be “Leadership Character” I began thinking about how to fill the few minutes I would be given within the programme to present on the subject. […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/mike1.jpg400306artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-07-19 11:01:122018-07-19 11:01:26Leadership character can be used positively to empower others
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/mike1.jpg400306artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-07-13 08:12:502018-07-13 08:12:50Monitoring, evaluating… and then what?
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/mike1.jpg400306artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-07-13 08:04:572018-07-13 08:04:57Book review: NEW TOME: A journey through Ethiopian churches
When I came to Kenya in the late seventies I was struck by how very differently people here wrote from the way I had been used to in the UK. It was as though I had journeyed back in time to the Edwardian or even Victorian eras of stiffness and formality. As I wondered why […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/mike1.jpg400306artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-07-13 07:54:332018-07-13 07:55:04Write more like you talk to get the message across
In my last column I wrote about a storytelling event I co-hosted, and today I hold on to that theme in this my 300th Business Daily article. For as I looked back over the 11 years my column has been running, it occurred to me that what I have actually been doing each fortnight is […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/mike1.jpg400306artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-06-21 15:31:272018-06-21 15:31:27Marking a milestone by gleaning lessons from art of storytelling
My colleague Frank Kretzschmar and I have been hosting our story-telling Leaders Circles for 12 years. The theme for our most recent event was “The Necessary Evil of Compliance”, a topic increasingly in the forefront of our minds. Yes, we did include “necessary” before “evil”, acknowledging that, as former Deputy US Attorney-General Paul McNulty put […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/mike.jpg400306artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-06-07 11:11:312018-06-07 11:11:31The necessary evil that is compliance
Ah, new technology: it threatens and disrupts. It always has and it always will. In 19th century England a group of textile workers known as Luddites destroyed weaving machines to protest against their “fraudulent and deceitful” use that was designed, they alleged, to get round the then labour practices. Luddites feared that the time spent […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/mike1.jpg400306artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-05-24 09:54:062018-05-24 09:54:06It’s futile to stand in the way of new technology
A month ago I was privileged to attend the launch of Alice Wairimu Nderitu’s book on national cohesion and integration, Kenya, Bridging Ethnic Divides. Ms Nderitu was a founding Commissioner of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), and before and since she has enjoyed a distinguished career promoting the cause of cohesion and integration, […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/mike1.jpg400306artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-05-10 08:39:252018-05-10 08:41:42NCIC does more work than what comes to surface
The Penguin Book of Modern Speeches (available at Text Book Centre and maybe elsewhere locally) reproduces a fascinating collection of speeches that have influenced history, and today I write about two among them. The first, delivered in 1960 to the South African Parliament by then British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, was about the “winds of […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-04-25 09:49:492018-04-26 09:57:33My selection of speeches that shaped history
My first leadership experience came when I arrived in Kenya in 1977 to be the general manager of the local subsidiary of a multinational IT company. Both the Kenyans who reported to me and the Brits to whom I reported expected me to be the proverbial “Big Man”, perceived as all-knowing, all-wise and all-powerful. And […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-04-11 08:05:462018-04-12 08:07:50Influence, not power yields better output from employees
I was in London last month at the time when snow covered the city, to work on a leadership programme with the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). One of those with me carried a wonderful book that I then also bought, The Greats on Leadership by Jocelyn Davis. In it Mr Davis offers […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-03-28 08:08:442018-04-12 08:11:48Kind of leadership needed to deal with a crisis effectively
You and I undertake customer journeys every day. Some are more or less fine throughout, and some have their ups and downs; some are consistently outstanding and some are the opposite, while with yet others it’s as though it depends on what those with whom you interact ate for breakfast that day. As I reflect […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280mikeeldonhttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngmikeeldon2018-03-02 13:05:062018-03-02 13:14:34Customer service steps that turn SMEs into giants
Several times a week, as I drive towards Westlands and beyond, I exit from James Gichuru Road and circle the oval onto Waiyaki Way. It is obvious we should keep to the right-hand lane on James Gichuru, awaiting a gap in the traffic driving west so we can line up for the U-turn that will […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280artkenyahttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngartkenya2018-02-14 08:14:082018-02-15 08:18:06The trouble with Kenya’s long list of neglected values
In much of my management consulting I help organisations clarify their values, and this is often the most interesting and challenging aspect of my work. Almost all my clients have an existing bundle of “core values” (I’ve never seen the need for the “core”), but few pay much attention to them — even if they […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280mikeeldonhttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngmikeeldon2018-01-31 07:58:262018-02-08 08:03:53Look at your ‘core values’ once more for urgent rework
In May 2016 I attended a Trump rally in Anaheim, California. I was visiting my daughter and her family, and I was curious to observe this emerging populist phenomenon up close and live. His campaign had built its strategy around such events, attract huge crowds and creating a political wave the Democrats were failing to […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280mikeeldonhttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngmikeeldon2018-01-17 07:52:502018-02-08 08:08:56What Trump letters say about President
My sister’s Christmas present to me when she came from London was David Goodhart’s new book, The Road to Somewhere. I’d never heard of Goodhart, but I am an admirer of the thoughtful Prospect magazine of which he was the founder editor. (Whenever I fly with British Airways I find a copy on board, and […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280mikeeldonhttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngmikeeldon2018-01-05 10:12:502018-02-08 08:08:55Kenya must entrench basic skills to plug unemployment gap
There’s still so much gloomy, pessimistic talk about how difficult it is for women to rise to the highest levels of leadership, but I wish there would be less of this poor-us mentality. Not because I am a chauvinist. No, it is for the opposite reason: it is because what I see all around me […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280mikeeldonhttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngmikeeldon2017-12-20 07:46:532018-02-08 08:08:26Hooray! Glass ceiling has been breaking
How much can your organisation grow: incrementally? Significantly? Massively? And how quickly: never? Eventually? Now? If yours is like others I have been working with recently, some among your colleagues will feel that only modest growth is reasonable and practical, while others — maybe just the odd outlier — are convinced that transformative expansion is […]
As a non-technical chief executive of IT companies over many years, I was conscious that one of my key roles was to understand what benefits our clients were seeking from investing in technology systems and to match these with what was being proposed by our technical staff. I was an interpreter and a mediator, bringing […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/01/mikeeldon02_280.jpg404280mikeeldonhttps://artkenya.net/mikeeldon/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/09/logo.pngmikeeldon2017-11-27 13:35:032018-02-08 08:08:13Keeping consultancy simple does not mean it’s simplistic
Involve staff in layoff plan to ease feelings
/in My Articles /by artkenyaIn the last few months I have come across numerous examples of employees who, as a result of a planned restructuring of the organisation in which they work, feel they will be losing out. They expect to suffer from woes such as diminished seniority, influence, control and prestige — even redundancy, while more practically also […]
Leadership character can be used positively to empower others
/in My Articles /by artkenyaA couple of weeks ago I was invited to be a panelist on NTV’s am Live Friday morning Leadership Forum, and when anchor Debarl Inea told me the theme would be “Leadership Character” I began thinking about how to fill the few minutes I would be given within the programme to present on the subject. […]
Monitoring, evaluating… and then what?
/in My Articles /by artkenyaThis is an article I wrote for ‘UN Special’, a magazine published by the UN for civil servants. Click here (link will open in a new window).
Book review: NEW TOME: A journey through Ethiopian churches
/in My Articles /by artkenyaAnd here’s a link to one of my book reviews which was recently published in the East African: Click here (link will open in a new window).
Write more like you talk to get the message across
/in My Articles /by artkenyaWhen I came to Kenya in the late seventies I was struck by how very differently people here wrote from the way I had been used to in the UK. It was as though I had journeyed back in time to the Edwardian or even Victorian eras of stiffness and formality. As I wondered why […]
Marking a milestone by gleaning lessons from art of storytelling
/in My Articles /by artkenyaIn my last column I wrote about a storytelling event I co-hosted, and today I hold on to that theme in this my 300th Business Daily article. For as I looked back over the 11 years my column has been running, it occurred to me that what I have actually been doing each fortnight is […]
The necessary evil that is compliance
/in My Articles /by artkenyaMy colleague Frank Kretzschmar and I have been hosting our story-telling Leaders Circles for 12 years. The theme for our most recent event was “The Necessary Evil of Compliance”, a topic increasingly in the forefront of our minds. Yes, we did include “necessary” before “evil”, acknowledging that, as former Deputy US Attorney-General Paul McNulty put […]
It’s futile to stand in the way of new technology
/in My Articles /by artkenyaAh, new technology: it threatens and disrupts. It always has and it always will. In 19th century England a group of textile workers known as Luddites destroyed weaving machines to protest against their “fraudulent and deceitful” use that was designed, they alleged, to get round the then labour practices. Luddites feared that the time spent […]
NCIC does more work than what comes to surface
/in My Articles /by artkenyaA month ago I was privileged to attend the launch of Alice Wairimu Nderitu’s book on national cohesion and integration, Kenya, Bridging Ethnic Divides. Ms Nderitu was a founding Commissioner of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), and before and since she has enjoyed a distinguished career promoting the cause of cohesion and integration, […]
My selection of speeches that shaped history
/0 Comments/in My Articles /by artkenyaThe Penguin Book of Modern Speeches (available at Text Book Centre and maybe elsewhere locally) reproduces a fascinating collection of speeches that have influenced history, and today I write about two among them. The first, delivered in 1960 to the South African Parliament by then British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, was about the “winds of […]
Influence, not power yields better output from employees
/0 Comments/in My Articles, News /by artkenyaMy first leadership experience came when I arrived in Kenya in 1977 to be the general manager of the local subsidiary of a multinational IT company. Both the Kenyans who reported to me and the Brits to whom I reported expected me to be the proverbial “Big Man”, perceived as all-knowing, all-wise and all-powerful. And […]
Kind of leadership needed to deal with a crisis effectively
/0 Comments/in My Articles, News /by artkenyaI was in London last month at the time when snow covered the city, to work on a leadership programme with the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). One of those with me carried a wonderful book that I then also bought, The Greats on Leadership by Jocelyn Davis. In it Mr Davis offers […]
Customer service steps that turn SMEs into giants
/0 Comments/in My Articles /by mikeeldonYou and I undertake customer journeys every day. Some are more or less fine throughout, and some have their ups and downs; some are consistently outstanding and some are the opposite, while with yet others it’s as though it depends on what those with whom you interact ate for breakfast that day. As I reflect […]
The trouble with Kenya’s long list of neglected values
/0 Comments/in My Articles /by artkenyaSeveral times a week, as I drive towards Westlands and beyond, I exit from James Gichuru Road and circle the oval onto Waiyaki Way. It is obvious we should keep to the right-hand lane on James Gichuru, awaiting a gap in the traffic driving west so we can line up for the U-turn that will […]
Look at your ‘core values’ once more for urgent rework
/0 Comments/in My Articles /by mikeeldonIn much of my management consulting I help organisations clarify their values, and this is often the most interesting and challenging aspect of my work. Almost all my clients have an existing bundle of “core values” (I’ve never seen the need for the “core”), but few pay much attention to them — even if they […]
What Trump letters say about President
/0 Comments/in My Articles /by mikeeldonIn May 2016 I attended a Trump rally in Anaheim, California. I was visiting my daughter and her family, and I was curious to observe this emerging populist phenomenon up close and live. His campaign had built its strategy around such events, attract huge crowds and creating a political wave the Democrats were failing to […]
Kenya must entrench basic skills to plug unemployment gap
/0 Comments/in My Articles, News /by mikeeldonMy sister’s Christmas present to me when she came from London was David Goodhart’s new book, The Road to Somewhere. I’d never heard of Goodhart, but I am an admirer of the thoughtful Prospect magazine of which he was the founder editor. (Whenever I fly with British Airways I find a copy on board, and […]
Hooray! Glass ceiling has been breaking
/0 Comments/in My Articles /by mikeeldonThere’s still so much gloomy, pessimistic talk about how difficult it is for women to rise to the highest levels of leadership, but I wish there would be less of this poor-us mentality. Not because I am a chauvinist. No, it is for the opposite reason: it is because what I see all around me […]
Great leaders don’t shy away from bold visions and targets
/0 Comments/in My Articles /by mikeeldonHow much can your organisation grow: incrementally? Significantly? Massively? And how quickly: never? Eventually? Now? If yours is like others I have been working with recently, some among your colleagues will feel that only modest growth is reasonable and practical, while others — maybe just the odd outlier — are convinced that transformative expansion is […]
Keeping consultancy simple does not mean it’s simplistic
/0 Comments/in My Articles /by mikeeldonAs a non-technical chief executive of IT companies over many years, I was conscious that one of my key roles was to understand what benefits our clients were seeking from investing in technology systems and to match these with what was being proposed by our technical staff. I was an interpreter and a mediator, bringing […]