So today’s post is going to be a bit short, as I was unable to finish two longer posts I started 
Instead, I decided to use this to gather and discuss a couple great
bits of advice I’ve gathered from various members of the business
community. So without further ado, a few tidbits of useful
information from people far smarter than I.The Say:Do Ratio
This one was a personal favourite when I saw it twittered by a friend of mine who does project management (@DustinFriel). The Say:Do ratio is probably one of the best stats to track for a project manager or manager. Keeping a formal note of what employees say they will complete or accomplish for you, and what they actually do can greatly aid in performance contracts, or for just a better idea of who is your best employee, or who you can most rely on in a tight situation.
Strategy is about Trade-off’s.
Louise Wilson, my director at PwC offered this bit of advice during a presentation on workforce strategies. I think this is a great thing to remember as in any situation we can’t do everything, all the time, and maintain quality. So smart companies know enough about their business to prioritize what differentiates them from their competitors, or what is core to their operations. Know your value-adding roles, and your core roles (or programs / processes) so you can prioritize them or build around them.
A perfect process not done, isn’t a perfect process.
This is from a Harvard Business Review interview with Miriam Ort (VP of HR at PepsiCo). She highlights the importance of a simple process getting done vs. a perfect/detailed award winning processes that employees and managers don’t do, or don’t do with the effort they should. I think this is also closely related to the rule of diminishing returns – at some point the effort extended begins to far exceed the value-added.
It’s about the conversation.
This is from a senior associate at PwC (Jayne). Jayne has over 15 years leading all sizes of organizational change, and this came up while we were discussing change management planning and methods, and Jayne stressed the importance that the benefit of any methodology is in starting the right conversations, but the value comes from the conversation itself. This is great for anyone who works in consulting.
Whatever you do, don’t cut your flower budget.
This one comes from David Gray, CEO of CCW (a very cool company that greens the oilfield industry). The value of appreciating employees is great… but the value of creating an inviting client experience is just as important. When budgets are tight, look for ways to improve the client experience as well as appreciating your employees.
So those are 4 good bits of advice I’ve received recently, let me know some more in the comments below.