Leadership in Global Crisis - Thriving on Chaos

Management is about following systems and processes and proceedures. Leadership is about changing them to achieve greater impact.

In a crisis, many weak leaders abdicate responsibility and behave like managers. Keeping their heads down, doing the minimum to stay out of trouble and blaming those above them for lack of direction, guidance and resources. Trouble is that crisis demands decisive, courageous leadership.

One of the first things that is needed in a crisis is to throw out or suspend beaurocratic management tools that may actually kill the organisation if religiously followed. You just don't have time for all that detail when big picture decisions are needed as a matter of great urgency eg a sweeping cut of 25% of the labour force.

It is absolutely vital to encourage each executive to rise above the chaos, keep engaged with the big picture, communicate closely with those above and below, make clear decisions in a transparent way with more regular meetings etc.

For more on practical steps to lead out of crisis back into growth see my article written yesterday on this: Article on main site

Global Warming - Practical Action to Stop Climate Change

Princeton University, Stop climate change. Slow down global warming. Reduce carbon emissions. wedges to tackle global warming. Real estate contribution to global warming -- 40% energy consumption on heating, cooling and lighting buildings. Carbon capture and carbon sequestration. Oxygen burning for coal to produce pure CO2 for carbon capture. Impact of carbon capure 95% to 100% carbon capture using next-generation technology. Compression of C02 underground. Economy, global warming, energy conservation and real estate industry. Environment, environmental change, climate change. Risks in real estate development. Operational and management risks and role of a Futurist. What is a Futurist? Identifying new opportunities in buildings control, environmental regulation. Keeping pace with change in real estate planning and corporate real estate demands. Impact on corporate real estate of mergers and acquisitions. How world getting faster, client demands growing faster. How clients behave illogically in longer term real estate planning. Buildings controls, heating and cooling, retrofitting high rise, office blocks and factories. Building regulations and government action. Longer term real estate planning. Market research limitations and customer expectations, client demands. Architects and buildings design, living space, partitions, ventilation systems, balancing and rebalancing air conditioning. ARBS. Business management video by Dr Patrick Dixon, conference keynote speaker lecture, author of Futurewise and Building a Better Business. Global warming impact from offices and commercial buildings, skyscrapers, tower blocks and corporate real estate. Energy efficiency and energy consumption of commercial buildings and office blocks. Balancing air conditioning systems with better building control systems (integrated temperature monitoring) can save over 30% of energy costs each year. Johnson Controls and other companies provide specialist technical advice on heat loss reduction and air conditioning management systems. Issues of ventilation, fresh air, "tight" buildings, carbon dioxide levels, heat exchangers and air ducting. Electricity use and power generation on buildings. Green roofs, open spaces, shade, natural light. Impact of global warming and CO2 reduction on building design, architecture, building regulations and government standards. Special tax relief and concessions, reductions in stamp duty for energy compliant 5* and 6* commercial properties. Activist campaigns to reduce carbon emissions. Carbon trading and offsets. Energy in construction and demolition as proportion of life-time energy use. Future of corporate real estate and corporate real estate management companies. Outsourcing buildings management.
Energy saving, corporate, real estate, property, cost, management, electricity, power, consumption, air conditioning, buildings controls, heat, cooling, light, air circulation, warming, carbon dioxide, gas emissions, reduction, green roofs

Future of Dentistry - digital dentists and dental ...

Future of dentistry, dental practice and dentists. Health care trends,oral care and mouthcare products. Digital imaging and dental diagnostics. Prosthetics, milling, machining and manufacture of bridges, crowns and dental devices. Porceline and polymers with nanotechnology, nanoparticles - polishing, shaping, machining, finnishing. Dental techniques and future of cosmetic dentistry. 3M video and 3D imaging, three dimensional video imaging in real time. Digital dental patient records and future of data systems. Innovation in dental practice. Video by keynote conference speaker Patrick Dixon.
Dentists, dentistry, digital, imaging, video, 3D, dental, health, care, innovation, conference speaker

Biofuels video: run buses on old cooking oil - Stagecoach ...

Innovation using old cooking oil to drive buses or cars or lorries. Future of public transport energy efficiency and Stagecoach innovation in energy saving, reducing carbon footprint. Why biofuel industry using food is dead -- converting food into oil is stupid and immoral but converting used cooking oil is a good thing. Biodiesel, biomass, biowaste and sugar to fuel conversion. Ethanol and gasoline or petrol mix, European Union EU poliy changes on biofuel and biowaste. Policy reversal. Anti-biofuel capaigns. Food riots, hunger, food shortages, rising food prices, whet prices, food hoarding and stockpiles. Speculation in food futures. Link oil price to food price. Starvation, Africa Asia, India, China. Competition for food -- poor people cannot eat, food prices rise, burning wheat in car engines, driving vehicles, adding ethanol to petrol / gasoline. Biodiesel, soybean price rises, rise price rises, food riots, destruction of forests for agriculture. Other reasons for rising food prices: drought, crop failure, hoarding, ban on food exports, stockpiling of food, speculation on food commodities markets. Ethics of biomass fuel generation and increased use of fertilisers. Net consumption or saving of CO2 / energy. Global trade in food, oil and energy. Ethical crisis in biofuels. Federal government policy and national energy policy. EU fuel regulations for ethanol, biodiesel and biomass fuel generation. Economy, global warming, energy conservation and real estate industry. Environment, environmental change, climate change. Risks in real estate development. Operational and management risks and role of a Futurist. What is a Futurist? Market research limitations and customer expectations, client demands. Business management video comment about successful Stagecoach innovation by Dr Patrick Dixon, conference keynote speaker lecture, author of Futurewise and Building a Better Business.
Energy saving, biofuels, biowaste, public transport, bus, buses, road haulage, cars, corporate, cost, management, warming, carbon dioxide, gas emissions, biofuels, biodiesel, biomass, biowaste, fuel production, cars, vehicles, aviation, food, wheat, soya, sugar, ethanol, reduction, green roofs

Global warming and construction industry / real estate

Global Warming Threat: Construction industry in Australia is wasteful and needs to change radically

Despite efforts to be more efficient, Australia’s emissions of carbon dioxide have risen at almost twice the world average rate over the last 20 years - to more than 100 million tons a year. That’s 5 tons for every person. With only 0.32% of world population, Australia produces 1.43% of global emissions.

While huge savings can be made by generating electricity from carbon more efficiently, or by using alternative power sources, there is also urgent need to cut energy use – and to reduce peak demand.

A key target for energy saving has to be the construction industry. 40% of Australia’s energy is used to heat, light or cool buildings, build them or knock them down. Most buildings in Australia were designed for a different era where electricity, coal, oil and water were cheap, and the greatest challenge is going to be refitting them for the third millennium.

Many of the most inefficient buildings are offices and factories. The lazy option is to pull them down and start again but this is really costly for the environment. If a building only survives 30 years before demolition, up to 40% of all the energy used in its lifetime will be spent building it, destroying it and carrying away the rubble.

That’s why we can expect huge efforts to retrofit older buildings - but we need to take great care to get it right, or more refits will be needed every decade as regulations and needs change. Compliance with today’s standards is a fast way to waste billions of dollars. You’ll have to upgrade again tomorrow, and the week after.

That’s why we need bold, radical, long term vision. We need to get ready for a future where energy is twice as expensive as today when carbon taxes are added. A world where energy saving has become a global obsession.

Retrofitting old commercial buildings can be an expensive nightmare – particularly as many of them are near the end of their original design life. It is a wasteful scandal that most office blocks built in the last 30 years were only intended to be lived in for three decades.

We need a radical change in mindset of architects, planners, developers, builders and property investors. New commercial buildings should be designed with at least 50 years in mind. That will require government action: big changes in building regulations and far stricter planning standards. Without these things there will always be a temptation to cut building costs and go for the short term.

You cannot imagine such short-sightedness when building private homes. Who wants to buy a new family house that is almost guaranteed to auto-destruct by 2040? Developers who try to build such trash for the domestic market will land up in prison – but in the commercial sector they are regarded as heroes: fast build, low cost and who cares about the future.

We have a moral duty to build for the longer term. Not just to save carbon emissions. There are huge numbers of other environmental benefits in terms of reduced demand for steel, copper, wood, reduced landfill and many manufactured items that can be conserved.

This is not just about more efficient air conditioning, better insulation, saving water or making buildings more intelligent. Such steps are only a small part of the answer. Expect nothing less than a total rethink about the kind of world we want future people to live in.

We are literally building the future: of communities, neighbourhoods, working places, leisure and home environments, places of learning and of healing. Great buildings pass on a legacy for many generations, and should last hundreds of years.

Building long term means it really matters what the construction looks like. Tomorrow’s world will expect many more landmarks of quality, which endure not only in their materials, but in the affections of those who use them. The Sydney Opera House is a wonderful example of design, harmony in location, and emotional attachment. We don’t build Opera Houses to knock them down a couple of decades later – so why do we tolerate such short-termism and poor quality elsewhere?

The technologies we need are already available for next generation buildings. Take geothermal heating and cooling. These systems use up to 50% less energy than alternative systems. 45% of new homes in New Zealand have them, 70% in Sweden and 30% in Switzerland. They work like refrigerator pumps, heating or cooling pipes laid a metre below ground. Systems pay for themselves in 15 years. The global market for geothermal installations could be more than US $40bn a year.

The gold standard will be zero emission buildings: where on-site power generation from solar, wind or other sources is more than enough to meet all heat, light and cooling needs. We are already seeing demands in Europe by governments that builders create carbon-neutral homes. It’s just the beginning. We can expect zero-emission new buildings to be forced on the industry in many parts of the world over the next decade. And as that happens, the gap will grow even wider between new and old building efficiencies.

Government regulations and subsidies can set up national industries to seize these new markets. Look what’s happened in Germany where government action has resulted in the country buying 70% of all solar cells made in the world every month – and German solar cell manufacturers are dominating globally.

So we can expect aggressive and radical changes in the way buildings run. But we can also expect a major rethink about how much energy is used in actually building them in the first place.

A key target for attack will be the concrete industry which is responsible for 5-7% of all global carbon emissions. Concrete is a bulky, low value, two-thousand-year-old commodity which uses massive amounts of energy in a wasteful way. We urgently need an alternative – and there is one.

Expect widespread use in future of geoplymers such as E-crete, a product using power station waste, developed by Jannie Van Deventer, a chemical engineer at the University of Melbourne, and founder of Zeobond. If we replaced half the world’s concrete production with e-crete it would save a billion tons of carbon dioxide in the next decade alone.

E-crete is just one of thousands of examples of new innovation we can expect over the next five to ten years.... representing tens of thousands of new business opportunities, and billions of dollars of new revenues.

But the transformations we need will only happen as the construction industry pulls in a younger generation of highly talented, innovative and creative business leaders, designers, architects, engineers, surveyors and developers. It is often hard for these sectors to compete with more glamorous and well paid careers in industries such as banking, marketing, computing or telecommunications. So how will it happen?

The best talent will only be drawn into the construction industry when a younger generation see huge, exciting opportunities for new highly-profitable business innovation and creative action, and a chance quite literally to help build a better future, driven not just by commercial pressures but also a mission to help save the world.

* Dr Patrick Dixon is a leading authority on global trends, author of 12 books including Futurewise and Building a Better Business. He works with many of the world’s largest multinationals. Over 10 million different people have used his website or watched his videos on the future. www.globalchange.com

Future of education -- instant knowledge in an online ...

Old style education focus on memory and knowledge. New style education needs to focus on how to find immediate answers to complex problems from a starting point of ignorance, using new technology. How education promotes useless skills and neglects primary requirements eg instant summary of state of knowledge, fine to draw heavily on existing material. But in education such a summary could be rejected as plagiarism. But in business originality is often less important than a superb summary. Radical changes needed in examinations, assessments. Future of examinations -- online, using keyboard to prepare answers, assistance is allowed, using existing sources is encouraged. Impact of Google on education. Impact on Universities. Need to teach evaluation methods to assess authority of online sources. References. Video on future of education, high schools, colleges, universities, curriculum, trends, syllabus, exams, assessments, business schools, MBAs, degree courses - by Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist conference keynote speaker for NAIS.

Future of Telecom Industry conference keynote at ICT Belgacom - Patrick Dixon

VIDEO: Future of Telecom Industry conference keynote at ICT Belgacom - Patrick Dixon: " "

Future of telecom industry video. Client experience. Future trends in telecommunications. Bandwidth, new technology, innovation, business use of communications. Virtual teams, virtual communications, why people often do not like videoconference. Consumer behaviour, decisions and use of technology. Conference keynote lecture by Dr Patrick Dixon. Business management. Integration of business solutions, voice over internet protocol, VOIP, servers, websites, streaming and business image. Credit card transactions, secure processing of payments, RFID and biometrics, fingerprint recognition. Mobile phone companies and remittances – payment transfers across countries / national borders. Future innovation and partnership between banks and telecom companies.Why market research often gives wrong answers about future telecom consumer trends. Mobile phone growth and market share in emerging markets, developed markets and developing markets.Importance of SMS for low-income mobile phone users. Bandwidth, video streaming, impact of web TV and mobile phone TV. Impact of YouTube. GPS and mobile advertising, direct marketing using SMS and targeting niche markets. Next generation advertising and commercial promotions.RFID integration into mobile devices. Automatic readouts of RFID and barcode product information. Replacement of credit cards and bank cards using mobile payment systems Divergence and convergence in mobile digital world. All innovation divergent. Dangers of benchmarking – converges on price, features and quality. Competitive advantage from divergence. Reliability and simplicity. Problems synchronising personal organisers, mobile phones and PCs with software such as Outlook, unreliable, over-complex technology fails to deliver as promised. Mobile devices in control systems, automatic meter reading, medical monitoring. Web 2.0 and online communities, mobile blogging, mobile video diaries. Social networks and social networking using online communities, on corporate image, brand development, product sales and recruitment. Old Advertising is dead in web 2.0 world. Call centres + customer relationship management. Atomatic answering systems can destroy client relationships. Keep close to customers: latest call centre technology.

Why ships will dominate global trade

Ships and shipping, ports and globalisation. International trade and logistics. Just in time. Manufacturing supply chain management and distribution. Lorry, road, rail. Air freight and container ships. Container terminals and stock control management. Industry, emerging markets and developed world. Global trends. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Toxic Testosterone Culture - Why women leave business -

Toxic testosterone culture. Glass ceiling, career promotion and career blockage. Gender inequality, gender discrimination and improving workplace diversity. College performance, employers, recruitment. War for talent. Why women are most of best talent at junior management, but poor representation at senior management. Incompetent men eliminate women from workplace -- male culture, macho, sexist humour, non flexible working, no career breaks, no flexitime, no child care, no understanding of work-life balance and family issues including caring for elderly relatives as well as young children at home. Steps corporations can take to improve diversity, win war for talent, become employer of choice, improve staff morale, staff retention, motivation and workplace productivity. Female talent losses reduce competitive advantage in long term. Stress at work. Changing working practices, innovation and use of virtual working, virtual teams and creation of virtual organisations. Promotion of part-time work and flexible working hours. Career break allowances and gap years. Parenting leave. Video by keynote conference speaker Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist and author of 12 books on global trends including Futurewise and Building a Better Business. Women, female, workplace, diversity, gender inequality, glass ceiling, career, war for talent, leadership, motivation, career planning, virtual working, retention, productivity, flexible, work, business, male, culture
Women, female, workplace, diversity, gender inequality, glass ceiling, career, war for talent, leadership, motivation, career planning, virtual working, retention, productivity, flexible, work, business, male, culture

How to Double Your Productivity -- Leadership -- ...

How to double your productivity as a leader. Leadership development, output, efficiency and team effectiveness. How to make things happen. Secrets of change management. Leadership styles. The 80 20 rule or 80:20 rule. How small things have huge impact. Focus effort, cut least productive things. Leaders waste huge efforts, money and time doing things with little impact. Examples of 80:20 rule in leadership development. Leadership training video. Management training video. How to save costs and improve bottom line profit, shareholder value and return on equity. Why productivity gains really matter and how to achieve greater efficiency. Secrets of leadership success. Video by keynote conference speaker Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist and author of 12 books on global trends including Futurewise and Building a Better Business.
Leadership, styles, productivity, success, change management, team impact, efficiency, cost reduction, profitability, business success, leaders, focus, customer, productivity, Patrick dixon

Leadership and motivation at work - conference speaker

How to lead people so they feel passionate about your corporate goals. Change management and business objectives. Connect with passion. Why people follow leaders. Leadership styles and effective leadership. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Risk management - wild cards - high impact, unlikely events

High impact unlikely events. Impact on future business strategy. Leadership and change management. Managing uncertainty and rapid change. Insuring risk and risk management in business. Contingency planning. Leadership styles and decisions. Web marketing. Online sales. Impatient consumers and consumer choices. Rapid innovation. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Motivation, leadership business change management business

Enjoy more than 100 of my videos. Over 60,000 views already on my video about how to make things happen. Connect with passion. Managing uncertainty with rapid change. Leadership styles. Why people get out of bed in the morning. How to motivate teams at work to do great things. Business management. Secret of leadership and ultimate leadership speech. Business ethics and values in corporations. Secrets of business success and increased productivity. Cutting costs. Increasing output. Adding shareholder value. Sustainable business success. Work life balance and lessons from non profits / volunteering. Why building a better world is such a powerful motivation. Lecture by Dr Patrick Dixon for MTN, author of Building a Better Business, Futurewise and conference speaker.Motivation at work. Leadership. Leadership purpose, aims, strategy and objectives. Profits and profitability. Motivation to succeed and secrets of business success. Productivity and efficiency key. Workplace morale. Team dynamics and leadership styles. Business mission and vision. Business values and office culture.

Future of Management - business success, marketing, leadership, change management and motivation - by Dr Patrick Dixon

I have just created a new collection of articles on management, marketing and motivation - plus more links to presentations and videos.

Feature in Financial Times by Dr Patrick Dixon on tribalism and ageing

Your company may have a reputation for brilliant leadership, outstanding innovation, clever branding and effective change management, but the business could fail if the world changes and you are unprepared.

Many debates about the future are about timing, such as the uptake of technology. But the future is also about emotion. Reactions to events such as bird flu are often more important than the events themselves.

Future of Fund Mangement and Related Issues - Dr Patrick Dixon for ICBI 2005

Future of Fund Mangement and Related Issues - Dr Patrick Dixon for ICBI 2005

Interesting how few fund managers believe their actively managed retail equity funds are worth investing in.

Most of the fund managers at the ICBI conference had little confidence in their own funds - according to the straw poll in my own plenary.

Best value: tracker funds

Innovation - unleash the power! Dr Patrick Dixon workshop

Innovate!: Great Ideas for Radical Business Success - Innovation is fundamental to ongoing business health and product development. Macro-innovation and micro-innovation and why you need both. How to generate low cost, practical ideas that you can implement tomorrow at almost zero cost, with immediate support from management and rapid payback. Use the same process to find major innovations to transform your entire business..

Real Success - Future values, marketing, leadership, motivation and and corporate governance- Dr Patrick Dixon


Changing values affecting marketing, motivation, management, leadership and corporate governance. Find the ultimate generic slogan and mission statement and why hundreds of multinationals are using it.

THE FUTURE OF ASSET MANAGEMENT

This presentation is just one of a huge number of resources on my site about financial services, banking and the future of the insurance industry.

Future of Insurance Industry - financial services trends (marketing, customers, products, services, strategy, leadership, change management, risk management) - by Dr Patrick Dixon for Aviva