The Efiko Podcast

Think-Say-Do

Emotional Intelligence, that is how you manage yourself and others around you contributes more significantly to your success than your cognitive intelligence that measures just your intellectual ability. In fact, if you have read all the books in the world and are yet unable to manage yourself and others around you, all that “booksmarts” will not be very valuable.

Ownership Thinking with the QBQ

One of the essential skills that intrapreneurs have is their ability to take ownership. The first thing every individual who is a member of a team or organization and intends to work with others to achieve results needs to do is to fall in line and take ownership.

Unleash the Power of Mentoring

There is nothing more delightful than having people around you who want to be better, who are hungry and desirous of improving themselves, adding value to the work that they do and pushing themselves to do more.

Building Intrapreneurs

One of the biggest impediments to the success of our organizations is the dearth of business and financial acumen among employees and managers. When people work for an organization and do not understand the strategy of the organization, its business model, how it makes money, and how its financial resources are managed, such people struggle to add value to the organization.

Get High on Your Own Supply

From watching too many gangster movies and listening to rap jams from the 1990s, I picked up the expression “Never get high on your own supply”. A code of conduct for drug dealers that proposes that you shouldn’t use the drugs that you are meant to be selling, so that you avoid the temptation of getting addicted, stealing from the mob, and ending up getting a dose of mob justice as was frequently depicted in the movies and music videos.

The 360 Degree Approach to Strategy

There is a lot of evidence in both research and practice that one of the biggest impediments to successful implementation of an organization’s strategy is the lack of commitment and buy-in of employees across all levels and parts of the organization. An evidence-based approach to increasing the buy-in and commitment of employees is to use a 360-degree approach to strategic planning and development.

Happiness is a Choice

A colleague of mine told me many years ago that every morning she would wait by the window facing the driveway to our office to see the expression on my face as I came out of my car to determine whether it was going to be a happy day or a sad one. A classic example of an “enigmatic” boss (putting it nicely), and an employee whose happiness had been mortgaged.

These Mistakes will Ruin Your Strategy

In the last fifteen years, I have been actively involved in helping organizations craft and implement their business strategies. That journey has exposed me to some of the largest companies and government agencies, given me a chance to compete against some of the Big 4 Consulting firms and also to collaborate with some of them in this regard.

Leadership is Beyond Your Position

Preparing leaders for the future is certainly the most important goal for any serious-thinking organization or society. The whole purpose of the education that you give your children for example is to prepare them for independent life, so that they can lead themselves and others around them.

Evaluating the Impact of Training

When you interact with many organizational leaders, they are very cynical about the investments that organizations make in training their employees. Unfortunately, the data supports their cynicism: most training does not translate to action and changes in the organization.