Dramatically Enhanced Strategic Thinking: 

If your business is like many others, you are always on the look out to improve and develop your strategic thinking capabilities and decision making effectiveness.

If you rely on models of thinking that no longer generate the benefits they once did you'll be happy to know that there is a way to boost those capabilities so critical to organisational success.  We'll give you training in using of a variety of Strategic Foresight tools designed to improve your ability to identify the greatest areas of operational leverage in your marketplace.  One of the strongest tools we give you is the Accelerated Scenario process -

The Accelerated Scenarios process (ASp) is used to enable your organisation to understand the possible business space you will be faced with and to consider operational choices that will place you in the most advantageous position.  Many Scenario Planning methods still rely on models developed in the 1960's and 1970's that require people and financial resources on a Scenario Planning exercise for anywhere between half a year to 18 months.  By comparison the ASp is an advanced methodology

The ASp is about challenging and expanding your expectations and assumptions requires the face to face commitment of your senior management team for just a couple of days.  By ensuring that the critical scanning work is done up front BEFORE the management team come together, the management group gets to focus on just answering the critical organisational questions, rather than losing time generating the content that feeds a scenario process.  At the end of the face to face sessions, a comprehensive report is compiled that details the information that fed the session, the issues that were considered in depth and the resultant 'robust strategies' and operational choices that emerged.

The ASp is an exceptional process that has proven its value to Government and For-Profit organisations of all sizes right around the country:

Example 1:  A division of Federal Govt Department, that sought answers to what type of service offerings it would need to deliver in the future, discovered that their current focus (on a small and specific segment) was in higher demand outside of their typical target audience and required access to services not yet available

Example 2:  A major entertainment company that sought to test strategic options based on potential changes in its key customer base, identified significant support for its go to market positioning leading to a major investment alliance.

Example 3:  A division of a FMCG firm became aware that its existing strategy of supporting a stable product in a slowly declining (but profitable) market had failed to see the emergence of a totally new market segment worth millions.  It subsequently created a new product which it has successfully introduced to fill the niche.

The ASp is about helping you test your existing thinking against alternatives that may not be so clearly defined.  It is about helping you see through the current haze to identify emerging opportunities and increased areas of risks.  It is about giving you the opportunity to generate the type of strategic choices that leverage high quality understanding for ongoing commercial and operational benefits.  Call us today to find out whether this program can help you - Email Looking Up Feeling Good or 613 9445 0289

Values, Customers, Leadership and Management - Doing What Works, Very, Very Well

Our clients often tell us that they have two core business aims:
1.   To motivate employees in a superior way to maximise business effectiveness and
2.   To dramatically enhance customer relationships to increase profitability.

Their challenge is that many approaches suffer from severe inconsistencies - what works for one organisation is an utter failure for others.  What works for one manager doesn't for others and as for motivating employees, if we could cater for individual and group preferences effectively, surely we'd be doing it, right?  Ah, unfortunately the answer is more often 'no'.

So what is causing the confusion?  The problem is caused by customer and employee engagement models that do not allow for flexibility and change.  For some the situation is even worse because they are using the silver bullet approach - pinning all of their hopes on the latest management 'tool' fad. 

We teach organisation to use the Value Systems model (also known as Spiral Dynamics 'tm').  You probably already know that the Value Systems model was the one used to help enable the dismantling of the apartheid regime in South Africa.  Or you've heard of the world cup winning team that used it for selecting its team members.  Maybe you've heard about it being used in the recruitment and education fields.  Or maybe this is the first time you've come across it.

Doing what works, very VERY well requires an exceptional , well tested, continually updated model - the Value Systems model.  Backed by decades of research and improvement the Value Systems model is not a 'typology' model.  It won't put you or your staff or your customers in a nice neat box.  It's a model that proves itself time and time again

What it does so elegantly is explain why things like demographics and 'generation X Y Z' type markers are fundamentally flawed.  Why ethnographic studies and biases based on where someone was born aren't complete enough to guide your business to make effective management and leadership decisions.

The director of Looking Up Feeling Good Pty Ltd has been trained by the National Values Centre (Texas & Sante Fe) in the USA.  He is rated by the NVCC as one of the top 5 Value Systems specialist in Australasia.  He has introduced the Value Systems model to the Defence, Advertising, Recruitment, Finance, Education and Manufacturing sectors (among many others) and now consults to businesses on specific Value Systems applications around employee recruitment and motivation and to the advertising industry on campaign design and delivery.

What the Value Systems model will do for your business is help you tap into dramatically increased returns from your current and future employee pool.  What the Value Systems model will do for your marketing and sales teams is enable them to understand the very drivers that make or break customer relationships for your business.  And each of those areas will develop the clean, applicable and purpose driven way to get the results you want

Innovation Programs - Turning the Theory into Practical Application

Innovation is a buzz word.  Yet 'Innovation' seems to be a buzz word that goes beyond the hype because time and time again, Innovators capture market position and profits beyond the dreams of the average players in the market.

The key questions are - 'How EXACTLY do you gain advantage through Innovation and how EXACTLY do you 'do it'?'

Marcus Barber's thoughts on innovation consistently appear in 'Fast Thinking', Australia's leading Innovation magazine and recent winner of the business to business magazine of the year award.  He uses his skills and experience to design Innovation processes that meet the specific requirements of your business, just like the manufacturing client that realised what it thought it did was completely different from what the marketplace said it did and gained a new found lease on life as a result.  Like the education organisation that suddenly worked out what 'Life Long Learning' REALLY meant and what they could do as a result.  And we'll help you answer the two key "HOW" questions so important to extracting value from Innovation

We have discovered that whilst organisations are good at talking about Innovation, far fewer understand the requirements for successfully developing a culture that embraces change - change for the better!

We offer a raft of choices for helping build your Innovative capacity.  From identifying potential and emerging innovation spaces, through to overcoming the barriers that prevent organisation's from innovating successfully, we'll work with you to help discover the inherent potential and unblock the pipelines to innovation success!

Call us to day on 613 9445 0289 or email us at Looking Up Feeling Good to find out how we can help