Successful leaders all know how to inspire and align their leadership teams. Want to know their secrets? Read Group Partners’ handy motivation and alignment guide.

Why do so many organisational transformation attempts fail miserably? Read our unmissable report: 3 clear areas to focus on if you want to implement a successful transformation.

Defining what makes a successful leadership team can be challenging to say the least. There are so many necessary elements and qualities that should be present within a senior team that it’s impossible to pinpoint just one.

This is the raw formula for your future. Keep working on it. 30 years of asking the world’s biggest brands and leaders the most critical strategic questions led to these 10. And trust me, they find them just as challenging as you will. Post them to me for an opinion when you are happy - if you like.

One of the great things about visual thinking is that it’s an easily accessible creative tool which can help you and your employees explore issues within your organisation. So, what can you do to become a better visual thinker?

A Long Road To Simplicity. It’s been a long time, but those memories stay alive. The lessons are just as valid now. Although my business is different today, it still revolves around people.

There’s lots of travel, and there’s still a stage, a number of flight cases, gaffa tape — definitely some performances, a fair amount of art and music — at least in the coffee breaks. It has a rhythm; we riff, we rock, and we roll — and I still refer to assignments as gigs.

Structured Visual Thinking.

Like all essential things in life, music is both complex and simple. It has a framework, chords, riffs and licks. It has an overall story. It has highs and lows and tells a story. But the result is simple.

As far back as I remember, that complex/simple thing applies to my general idea of creativity and collaboration. Structured Visual Thinking

A well understood strategy has to be built on an effective operational model. The leadership mindset will appreciate the importance of preparedness and as far as possible be supporting the team to build in flexible working practices.

It’s no surprise that working visually has become so much more common in business over the last decade. A visual has the power to transmit considerable information extremely quickly. Almost everybody we speak to will tell us they are a visual person and they prefer visuals any day to a long document or deck.

Sadly, efficiency and effectiveness in business have come to mean large investment in technology, software applications and performance management methodologies.

Seems ironic to me.

The art of visual thinking is the ability to utilize our ease of understanding shapes, pictures, and patterns to assist us in absorbing information more effectively.

In today’s business climate, there’s a great deal of discussion about strategic leadership. However, there are many times when strategies fail to produce expected results, and when leaders without a plan will thrive, based purely on strong merit and high motivation.

There’s a lot of variability when answering a question like that. Each and every assignment we work on is about business transformation of some sort. Although many clients don’t define their challenge as transformation.

Although the business world is increasingly digital, the talent and expertise of the people remains the critical difference between companies.

Consequently empowering and enabling the people in the business makes absolute business sense. In the vast majority of businesses the people are the biggest operational cost.

Business alignment is essential if a company is to achieve its full potential. But for businesses wishing to achieve successful strategic alignment, there are many factors to consider.

If you ask a group of business leaders to list the most important strategy questions they need to ask in order to transform or improve their business, many will be stumped. It’s not that they aren’t capable of finding the right questions; in most cases, they simply don’t have the time!

Organizational culture is not always easy to pin down, as it depends on several factors. It can also be constantly switching, changing, and evolving over time. Identifying the organizational culture of your business will help to improve communication and employee engagement in the work environment.

In the course of our work we see many failed transformation attempts. A high proportion fail for cultural reasons.

And that’s a significant challenge because unlike processes and system transformation, where the change required is primarily around physical implementation, culture is 100% about people.

When it comes to transforming a business a fundamental business process, the importance of the role of the CEO cannot be overstated.

As a CEO, you are at the helm of your business.

You are responsible for guiding it into new seas with confidence and certainty.

Are you wondering whether your company needs a business sustainability strategy? Do you find yourself facing increasing pressure to create and implement sustainability initiatives? If so, you’ll find this comprehensive exploration extremely useful. Read on if you’d like to know more about what a business sustainability strategy is and why your company needs one in today's business climate.