Entries by Mike Pounsford

Developing Listening Organisations for the 21st Century

Developing listening organisations for the 21st Century Listening matters Listening is important. 98% of people agree listening to stakeholder groups is a critical communication competence and 89% say the insights they bring from listening are of strategic importance.1 Listening matters for: Responsiveness and survival2 The speed at which industries and markets are changing means we need […]

Mapping history

How and why to use the story of your business to build engagement and purpose   The birth of the business and the founders’ hopes highlight the DNA.  The early and crises years add colour, athenticity and credibility.  The recent past acknowledges the importance of current people and sets up a discussion of what needs […]

Creating better places to work

What can you do to make people happier at work? The focus for a knowledge cafe1 (facilitated by David Gurteen at Portcullis House in Westminster) threw up some valuable insights and reflections. James Brown the business psychologist kicked off with some personal stories and highlights of the growth in poor mental health identified by the […]

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Defining Purpose

Every team, group and organisation needs clarity about its purpose.   This chart explores questions that are helpful in uncovering purpose.  Use this to start a quality purpose-defining conversation within a team at any level in an organisation, or within an association or community group.

Mission v Purpose v Vision v Strategy v Values?

  What is the difference between Mission and Purpose and Vision? Having a strong sense of Purpose that inspires people makes a real difference as our recent webinar explained.  But on that webinar about creating and sharing Purpose there were lots of questions about terminology.  It is clearly an area that causes confusion.  Most clients […]

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We have had enough of experts

Michael Gove famously claimed that Britain had had enough of “Experts.”  Whether he is right or not a lot of change involves venturing into new territory.  New ways of working require people to work together to learn from each other.  The Ideas Exchange is an approach to learning used with members of the International Association […]