“Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from outside is available…a new idea as powerful as any other in history will be let loose.” -Sir Frederick Hoyle, 1948

One of the most beautiful photos I have ever
seen is a picture of the earth rising over the
horizon of the moon. It looks blue, warm and
safe, particularly juxtaposed against the bleak
surface of the moon in the foreground and the
black emptiness surrounding it.

According to my Globe this weekend, this little
planet we inhabit is meandering through the
galaxy at about 1,332,000 kilometers an hour.
It sure doesn’t feel like we’re going that fast.
I guess it’s a good thing that we have that
atmosphere surrounding us like we’re driving
through space in a convertible with the top up.

(Much as I love convertible, I for one am glad we have that top up – I can’t imagine what a mess my hair would be if it were being blown around at that speed.)

I’m just saying that we need to protect this little ball we are riding around on so that it stays warm, safe and blue. We need to recognize that we all share the same land and sea and air and ruining it for anyone ruins it for everyone. And finally that when someone cuts you off in traffic or jumps into line ahead of you or doesn’t do what you ask them to do, give yourself some perspective by remembering the little blue ball in the middle of the big black emptiness.

Christy DeMont

Giuseppe Quintarelli, died on Sunday. He was 84 years old at the time
of his death, and he died at home in Negrar, in the Veneto region in
northeastern Italy.

Guiseppe Quintarelli was a winemaker. He
made glorious wines, rich, complex wines
infused with the sense of where they were
made.

Bepi, as he was known, followed his father
and grandfather into the winemaking
business. He started in the family business
in the 1950s and was still making wine in
the early 21^st century. He respected and
adhered to traditional techniques for making
wine and but also experimented with new
techniques to try to improve the quality and
consistency of the wine that came out of his
vineyards.

His interest in quality didn’t stop at the wine
making – he also used high quality corks,
bottles and labels. The labels on his wine
bottles are hand written and have his
signature on each one.

So the point of all this is that here was a man who spent his life focused on making the best wines he could, paying attention to the big things as well as the small things that made a difference. He tried new things but also respected the traditions of his industry. He understood that quality comes from skill and patience, seeing the big picture as well as the details. Good lessons for us all.

For the record, I had a bottle of his wine back in the fall – and it was everything it was promised to be.  Maybe the best bottle of wine I’ve ever had.  So if you come across one on a wine list somewhere, and you don’t mind dropping a couple of hundred bucks on it, order it up and think about Bepi and what quality means.

The theory is that there are no stupid questions. Okay, this is not quite true – but more on this later. First, a story.

I had a client a few years ago who was nervous about an interview I was about to do with a difficult business user in the early stages of a project. He asked for my list of questions for the interview in advance. I gave him my list:

 “How does your department contribute to the success of the organization?”

“What works well and what areas/products/projects could be improved?”

“What do you need this [new computer system] to do to help you achieve your mandate?”

“What are the risks that I need to consider as we plan for and implement this [new computer system]?”

My client seemed unimpressed with my list and unsure that we would actually need the 2 hours we had booked for this conversation.  Of course (because this is my blog entry, not yours), we had a great meeting, garnered the support of the previously difficult business user, and after the meeting, my client told me that he couldn’t believe that we had such a great meeting when I went in with a simple list of 4 questions.

As you can imagine, I actually asked many more questions than just the 4 listed, but all as part of a dialogue.  The four questions keep the focus on key meeting outcomes and serve to get the conversation started.

Whether you are collecting business requirements, learning about a vendor proposal, or managing a staff member, asking open-ended, neutral questions is the key. And there’s nothing wrong with asking really basic questions (“why do you do that?”) that drive the discussion back to the first principles – i.e., what are we trying to accomplish with this project/department/product  - that can get lost in the urgency of day-to-day operations.

And as for the no stupid questions theory, rest assured that there are entirely stupid questions – questions that demonstrate that you haven’t been listening, or don’t care about the answer you just got, or trick questions that get asked because somebody has a hidden agenda.  But those are for a different blog entry.

Christy DeMont

Sheila Hamilton

I went to the symphony a few weeks ago with my sister- something we have been doing about five times a year for about twenty years now.  Lang Lang was playing, and everybody in the crowd was blown away.  It struck me how many people and how much imagination went into creating that experience.  The obvious creators are of course Beethoven, Lang Lang, the orchestra and conductor, but I thought too about the people who designed and built Roy Thomson Hall, the music teachers, the craftsmen who made the instruments and all of us in the audience that night.
 
It goes that way in business too.  None of us is an island- our clients and suppliers are the obvious co-creators of our business experience, but we rely on a much broader network too.  Our colleagues, partners and mentors inspire us with great ideas and serve as role models. The larger community supports us in a million ways every day.  It works mostly because all of us are working in some way for everybody else. The more we acknowledge and celebrate how interconnected we are, the better connections we’ll have.

Sally Fazal

Some people think the point of networking is to develop new business opportunities and to win contracts. While this is partially true, the real reward of networking is the connections that we make – or remake if we haven’t been in touch for a while. It’s the mutuality of finding out what someone you possibly used to work with is doing now and to let them know the same about you. It’s the chance to have some informal input into a great new idea that someone you know or have just met is working on – even if you never know how your comments may have shaped the direction that their initiative takes. It’s the way to re-introduce yourself to people who have known you in another context but don’t really know what you do in your professional like. The new tools like LinkedIn that support networking in the 21st century are great but it’s the human connections that make it fun.

Jane Rounthwaite

The Board of Directors of The Osborne Group recently announced that Jane Rounthwaite has been named to the position of President of The Osborne Group. In this role, Jane will be responsible for the overall strategy and implementation of the company's business development.

Jane succeeds John Annett who has been President since the founder, Don Wood retired in the spring of 2010. John is returning to the role of Vice President, a position which he held for many years when Don Wood was President.

 The Osborne Group 

Energy. Its expensive and with recent supply changes quickly becoming more so. I regularly suggest to clients that every organization undertake an “Energy Assessment” which might cover these vulnerable areas.

• Energy expense impact on the corporate income statement – Is it visible and monitored?
• Is the natural gas supply reliable and is there any pricing stability measures in place
• New capital equipment impact on your energy demand
• Personnel awareness and skill training
• Heated water system management status
• Waste energy capture status
• Electrical rate pricing optimization
• Electrical facility safety upgrading requirements
• Energy Management System status

Every step towards a well thought out energy management plan saves your organization money and reduces your greenhouse gas emission footprint! It’s easy to rewire your organizations’/operating disciplines to consume less and reuse what we waste but you have to make the first step. Start with an assessment and finish with happy shareholders! 

David Rankin

Change management can be described as bringing a lot of people from different starting points to a single destination.  So often companies and not-for-profit agencies use a one-size fits all approach to communicating change or transformation to employees and stakeholders.  Of course, everybody is not starting in the same place, either in terms of capacity to adapt or in understanding the goals.  Realizing that we have to meet people where they are (and hear where they are), rather than where we would like them to be can be a real epiphany in change initiatives.  We’re leading real people and not their job descriptions.  A sensitively managed change project will reach out to people through multiple channels, multiple times.  Most importantly, though, successful change initiatives are based on effective and active listening to people.  

Sally Fazal

We know Ontario’s family doctors are highly intelligent, caring practitioners.  They study for years to gain the knowledge and expertise that allow us to put our lives trustfully into their hands when we get sick.

By the same token, the CEOs of our largest corporations are knowledgeable, skilled business people, entrusted with public and private funds to run complex organizations that keep our economy and our lives running smoothly and (in most cases) profitably.

Would you ask your Bank President to diagnose your health issues?  Of course not. 

But with recent initiatives in primary health care, what we are asking doctors in Ontario (and other provinces) to do is to govern and manage large organizations to deliver programs and services in a new model of primary health care delivery. 

Doctors don’t get business training when they go to medical school.  They don’t get training in governance, human resource management, or finance.  Yet they are being expected to preside over Family Health Teams, to establish collaborative health care practices, to hire, supervise and fire employees, to meet legislative and regulatory requirements for corporations, and to undertake and manage performance monitoring and measurement. 

If these new initiatives in inter-professional, collaborative primary health care are going to succeed, the Ministry needs to assess and invest in the infrastructure, systems, training and support that physicians need. 

Melodie Zarzeczny