Looking back… In the grand scheme of things, 2020 will obviously be the year of the Corona-virus. But despite (and sometimes thanks to) Covid-19 it has also been a good year. In 2020 we re-invented the concept of family dinner into actually having a meal together at the same time. Well, at least five times […]
When starting as a freelancer, people warned me that I might get stuck. Some colleagues at the time were afraid that my development might come to a halt. Without the R&D back-up of a company or corporation, how would I come up with new ideas? It turns out there is nothing to worry about. Over […]
Onlangs lanceerden we ons Agile Sourcing-aanbod, ontwikkeld om organisaties te ondersteunen die meer waarde willen genereren in hun samenwerking met IT-leveranciers. Geïnspireerd door verschillende Agile principes… waaronder een compleet pakket verfrissende inzichten, innovatieve tools, actieve samenwerkingsmethoden en meer dan 25 jaar ervaring in sourcing, helpen we partijen bij het smeden van een duurzame betrokkenheid. Een […]
Recently I came across a Google Talk with John Cleese who was interviewed about his memoirs “So, Anyway…”. To call it an interview is a compliment to Jason Sanders who did his best to guide the conversation. Despite the no-doubt well-prepared questions, his guest didn’t need a lot of cues to engage in a very […]
Lately I came across the work of Benjamin Zander. He was the conductor for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra for 20 years. He is also a renowned music teacher with students from all over the world. Apart from his musical career he co-authored a book called ‘the Art of Possibility’. In a TED-talk about the Transformative […]
In my current engagement I came across the ideas of David Marquet, a captain in the US Navy with interesting ideas about leadership. He isn’t the first articulating these kind of ideas but his context is unique as a nuclear submarine is an unlikely environment for a social experiment. Moving from a leader-follower culture to a leader-leader […]
After 25 years, working for seven different employers in multiple countries on two different continents it was time for a new step. The real choice was to either support the vision of someone else or follow my own dreams and act on my own values and principles. With all the examples from the past to learn from […]
The drivers for sourcing are quite diverse, but more often than not ‘cost savings’ is high on the priority list together with ‘focus on core business’ and ‘quality improvement’. Very rarely sourcing engagements are seen as an opportunity to increase happiness or change the world for the better. But there are exceptions and I would […]
A recent trend in Shared Services and Outsourcing is Robotics Process Automation (RPA). In the early days labour arbitrage and industrialized delivery models were used to optimize processes and bring down cost. Twenty years later we see that additional value needs to come from new initiatives and RPA is a good candidate to deliver onthis […]
There are several ways to make decisions in life. My type of personality would generally rate the rational approach above the more emotional attempts to get to a conclusion. Normally I would do a risk analysis, talk to people who’s knowledge and opinion I respect and I would draft a list of all the pro’s […]
Management Consultants as a species are always busy. Client meetings, presentations to prepare, reports to finish, networks to be maintained, we are running all over the place. But to be fair, our level of activity varies over the year. When working on three or four client engagements at the same time our agenda’s are back-to-back […]
Early in the new year is the time to think about life’s priorities. Numerous people start 2015 with the best intentions to live healthier lives by eating better, exercise more and if applicable stop smoking. When making up your mind about things to change this year, your Social Media behaviour may be part of the […]
