Article

How do you tell the people who hired you to find the problem and recommend a solution, that they are the problem – or at least, a large part of it, and, therefore, a large part of the solution? This is the dilemma that some of us face as management consultants: how to speak truth to power – and still get paid.

In the economic circumstances that we find ourselves, the knee-jerk response of most companies is to cut their largest expenditure; and, invariably, the largest expenditure is labour and its associated costs like recruitment, compensation and training. But it is precisely an organization’s people - its human capital – that can help it survive the dreaded “R” word.

Do you know what your employees are thinking? About your organization? About their co-workers? About management? About you? Should you care? Yes, you should! Because what people think influences how they act. And what your employees think – their attitudes, opinions, views, perceptions, likes and dislikes – influences how they behave and perform in the workplace, and ultimately impacts your organization’s effectiveness, efficiency and bottom line. Therefore, it is in an organization’s interest to find out what its employees are thinking, what’s making them tick and what’s not, what they’re happy about and what they’re not happy about; because it could make the difference between a successful organization and a not so successful one. How Do You Know What Your People Are Thinking?

What does it take to “win in the marketplace” in today’s competitive environment? According to former CEO of Campbell Soup and New York Times bestselling author, Doug Conant, “to win in the marketplace, you have to win in the workplace.”