I have recently been exposed to a couple of situations where the manager of a salesperson has been playing an unnecessarily high proportion of the role that could and should have been carried out by the salesperson. In each case, the salesperson was an “account manager”, or “relationship manager”, two terms which I like and […]
Last Friday, immediately before this week’s Africa Climate Summit, KENCTAD (the Kenyan Entrepreneurs’ Conference on Trade & Development) organised a conference on sustainability. It was all to do with how being serious about ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) issues benefits businesses, and I was invited by Ngida Sebastian, KENCTAD’s ESG Lead, to be the keynote […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mikeeldon02.jpg546427adminhttps://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo.pngadmin2023-09-05 11:58:002023-09-05 11:58:00Kenyan firms live up to ESG ideals
I’ve written before about Frank Kretzschmar and my Leaders Circle events, and here’s something about the most recent one we hosted on the story-telling theme “Gaining and losing trust: moments of judgment, and their consequences”. In preparing for the event I dove into the three books on trust by Stephen M.R. Covey (the son of […]
Last December I wrote in this column about the importance of adopting a systems approach to corporate social responsibility, aligning and integrating it not only with the Sustainable Development Goals and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) issues but also with the overall organisational strategy. (This is despite concerns that neither the SDGs nor ESG incorporate […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mikeeldon02.jpg546427adminhttps://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo.pngadmin2023-07-25 15:36:462023-07-27 11:33:27Having everyone on the same page
Tomorrow it will be 30 years since my son Dan was killed in Somalia at the age of 22. Dan was a Reuters photojournalist there and he, along with Hos Maina, Anthony Macharia and Hansi Kraus, was attacked with sticks and stones by an angry mob infuriated by the bombing from an American helicopter of […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/mike-and-dan.jpg666512adminhttps://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo.pngadmin2023-07-11 18:56:292023-07-12 18:04:19My son Dan and me, 30 years on
On June 15, I attended the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa) AGM, where CEO Carole Kariuki and outgoing chair Flora Mutahi reeled off the activities and achievements of the previous 12 months. As at previous AGMs, the sheer volume and variety were staggering to absorb – indeed two years ago I wrote a column about […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mikeeldon02.jpg546427adminhttps://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo.pngadmin2023-06-27 09:56:412023-06-27 09:58:35Building private sector, State ties
In my last article, I wrote about minute-taking, and it led me to think about that other vital skill that is even more significant in making meetings work well or otherwise: how they are chaired. And just like some minute-takers write too much and some write too little, so some who chair meetings talk too […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mikeeldon02.jpg546427adminhttps://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo.pngadmin2023-06-15 10:50:192023-06-15 10:50:56The art of chairing great meetings
Writing minutes of meetings offer interesting challenges. They must be neither too long nor unduly brief, just capturing the objective essence of what happened. We usually don’t need to know who said what, for they are not transcripts, but we must record who is to follow up on what and by when. Sounds quite straightforward, […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mikeeldon02.jpg546427adminhttps://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo.pngadmin2023-05-30 09:11:492023-05-30 09:11:49Making minutes count after a meeting
As in my last article, this one again focuses on customer engagement – or rather lack thereof. The previous one found me in a hospital setting, coaching the man who had just managed me through enduring a CT scan – but without any accompanying human touch. Happily, he reacted positively to my coaching, and I’d […]
https://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mikeeldon02.jpg546427adminhttps://mike-eldon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo.pngadmin2023-05-02 14:58:542023-05-02 14:58:54Smiling with customers
When I was in hospital for several weeks with Covid in 2021 I experienced the whole spectrum of service quality, from the outstanding to the adequate and occasionally down to the unacceptably poor, and I wrote something about it in this column – including referring to that wonderful book, If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9½ […]
Applying the Balanced ScorecardJuly 23, 2024 - 2:15 pm
Training relationship managers
My ArticlesI have recently been exposed to a couple of situations where the manager of a salesperson has been playing an unnecessarily high proportion of the role that could and should have been carried out by the salesperson. In each case, the salesperson was an “account manager”, or “relationship manager”, two terms which I like and […]
Kenyan firms live up to ESG ideals
My ArticlesLast Friday, immediately before this week’s Africa Climate Summit, KENCTAD (the Kenyan Entrepreneurs’ Conference on Trade & Development) organised a conference on sustainability. It was all to do with how being serious about ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) issues benefits businesses, and I was invited by Ngida Sebastian, KENCTAD’s ESG Lead, to be the keynote […]
Matrix of gaining, losing trust
My ArticlesI’ve written before about Frank Kretzschmar and my Leaders Circle events, and here’s something about the most recent one we hosted on the story-telling theme “Gaining and losing trust: moments of judgment, and their consequences”. In preparing for the event I dove into the three books on trust by Stephen M.R. Covey (the son of […]
Having everyone on the same page
My ArticlesLast December I wrote in this column about the importance of adopting a systems approach to corporate social responsibility, aligning and integrating it not only with the Sustainable Development Goals and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) issues but also with the overall organisational strategy. (This is despite concerns that neither the SDGs nor ESG incorporate […]
My son Dan and me, 30 years on
My ArticlesTomorrow it will be 30 years since my son Dan was killed in Somalia at the age of 22. Dan was a Reuters photojournalist there and he, along with Hos Maina, Anthony Macharia and Hansi Kraus, was attacked with sticks and stones by an angry mob infuriated by the bombing from an American helicopter of […]
Building private sector, State ties
My ArticlesOn June 15, I attended the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa) AGM, where CEO Carole Kariuki and outgoing chair Flora Mutahi reeled off the activities and achievements of the previous 12 months. As at previous AGMs, the sheer volume and variety were staggering to absorb – indeed two years ago I wrote a column about […]
The art of chairing great meetings
My ArticlesIn my last article, I wrote about minute-taking, and it led me to think about that other vital skill that is even more significant in making meetings work well or otherwise: how they are chaired. And just like some minute-takers write too much and some write too little, so some who chair meetings talk too […]
Making minutes count after a meeting
My ArticlesWriting minutes of meetings offer interesting challenges. They must be neither too long nor unduly brief, just capturing the objective essence of what happened. We usually don’t need to know who said what, for they are not transcripts, but we must record who is to follow up on what and by when. Sounds quite straightforward, […]
Smiling with customers
My ArticlesAs in my last article, this one again focuses on customer engagement – or rather lack thereof. The previous one found me in a hospital setting, coaching the man who had just managed me through enduring a CT scan – but without any accompanying human touch. Happily, he reacted positively to my coaching, and I’d […]
Feeling the customer’s pain
My ArticlesWhen I was in hospital for several weeks with Covid in 2021 I experienced the whole spectrum of service quality, from the outstanding to the adequate and occasionally down to the unacceptably poor, and I wrote something about it in this column – including referring to that wonderful book, If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9½ […]