Development Solutions Consultancy

Intentionally or not organizations develop their own culture. Every organization has a culture, the question is, “Was the culture intentional or unintentional?” Sadly and all too often the culture that emerges in many organizations is unintentional. The problem is that most unintentional cultures do not drive the organization forward towards better productivity and greater achievements.

Great organizational cultures are built on the premise of "creating experiences that make employees and customers feel valued and appreciated." Now let's take a look at three guidelines towards building a great culture.

1. Vision - A clear vision of what you are doing is the starting point of a great culture. This is really the blueprint of what your organization intends to do. However, too many organizational visions remain mere statements on walls with hardly any meaning to the organization. True visions must be alive and evident within employees. It's important for a vision to be effectively communicated all throughout the organization because it acts as a guide for people's decisions and actions within the organization. A vision drives strategic management.
2. Purpose - Purpose is the reason why you are doing what you are doing. It's imperative to let your people know why the vision matters. When people understand and embrace purpose, Continue reading...

For the most part, a lot of people often spend quite a huge percentage of their lives in employment. As you know, time is the most valuable commodity that, ironically, is available to every one. To the extent employment results into personal success depends on the way we look at employment and what we put into employment time both in terms of quality and quantity. We have the ability to control much of the success from employment. Here are a couple of tips that could help you change the way you look at employment and open the door to personal success through employment.

Tip # 1: Take personal responsibility

See your job as an important business that you own. In other words instead of simply coming to work every day, see yourself coming to your personal business that is focused on providing the highest value to its intended customers. This will drive you to think of better and more efficient ways to do your job. Taking personal responsibility therefore makes you realize what you have to do to improve your "personal business" in terms of investment, growth and customer satisfaction. Continue reading...

A closer look at successful people reveals that they are very good at what they do. What we normally don't see are the countless numbers of hours, months and years they invested in generating their admirable skills. The bottom line is that people who identify what the market needs, invest time in generating and perfecting the necessary skills will always be valuable in the market place. Other people may say that successful people are lucky, but through close observation we find that, luck gets created through relentless hard work. Since we get paid for bringing value to the work place, naturally these people will always be well compensated.

It's important to constantly carry with us the attitude of continuous and never ending improvement of how we do what we do. As we improve we, almost unconsciously and potentially, begin to position ourselves for higher achievements and success in life. Sometimes our jobs are challenging, and it is precisely at these times when such challenges are opportunities for developing our skills be it in technical or inter personal areas. As we work we are always challenged to look for personal development opportunities in our jobs Continue reading...

History reveals to us that King Solomon was the richest man who ever lived. He was the King of Israel who reigned around 1000 BC. It was said that the he was rich in both wisdom and wealth. In fact, as the story goes, it was his wisdom that made him wealthy. Just as there are physical laws that govern the physical universe, King Solomon reveals "laws of living" that invisibly govern all aspects of life.

Here are a few highlights from King Solomon’s wisdom that still hold a firm truth today and sure enough, they can absolutely enhance the quality of our lives when applied:

• The diligent are rewarded. Diligence is about being very time conscious and making every hour count towards achieving what we want. Diligence is not just about being persistent, but it's about being persistent in doing the right thing and in the right way. True diligence will make a person the most valued employee in any workplace.
• Without vision, people perish. A personal vision fuels our hope, provides direction and gives us the momentum in our daily lives. Continue reading...

If you are just joining us on this series, be sure to take a look at part 1.

Jim Collins defines a great company as one that consistently makes a distinctive impact to its beneficiaries, has superior performance in its arena of operation and continuously achieves sustained returns in excess of other companies in its industry.

There are countless numbers of companies in the world today yet, only a few are great ones. You will quickly realize after looking at the principles below that, what makes great companies is actually not enigmatic. On the contrary the principles are surprisingly straightforward but seldom practiced by other companies. In other words, great companies are disciplined in doing what’s hard and necessary to get them to greatness.

• Great companies didn’t decide to get passionate about what they do; rather they decided to only do the things they can be passionate about. They clearly understand what they can be the best at in the world, and equally important what they cannot be the best at. Continue reading...

Jim Collins wrote a phenomenal book titled "Good to Great". He and his team did a very extensive research to find out what made companies move from just being good to becoming leading world class authorities in their respective fields. I think we can learn a great deal from his findings and add more value in both personal and professional lives. Below are the lessons and insights we can all utilize and benefit from:

• Good to Great leaders focused on acquiring people who had more attitudinal qualities than specialized knowledge. Their initial focus was creating a culture of discipline. They believed that by having the right disciplined people, you then don't need hierarchy, bureaucracy or mechanisms for excessive controlling. This makes a lot of sense since a lot of research on success, points out that your attitude determines how high you make your mark in life. You can explore more on this amazing topic of attitude by taking a look at an older post titled Importance of Attitude.
• The research points out that the leaders here had unwavering resolve; they had such a strong determination to do whatever it took to make the company great. Continue reading...

In the recent years succession planning has become a topical issue in the circles of public organizations in Tanzania. It is a result of unprecedented large numbers of employees retiring at about the same time without proper planning for their replacement. Not only was the need to employ new staff created but also a seniority gap. The gap between the level of existing staff and the seniority of job positions falling vacant was big. This has called for urgent measures to upgrade skills of employees and to ensure public organizations develop succession plans.

As is always the case, for every problem there is an opportunity. The opportunity created by the need for succession planning should be utilized not only to recruit staff but also to improve management and leadership systems. Improved management and leadership systems would ensure maintaining optimal organizational staffing and availability of conducive work environment for employees to give their best performance. Achieving this depends on the extent succession planning is properly conducted because succession planning is not about planning per se. It is about developing effective management and leadership systems. Continue reading...

Leadership is the capacity to influence people through inspiration. This inspiration is generated by passion whose source is a value based vision. When you have passion, you can inspire people and when you inspire people, you can influence them. Just, what is passion and how is it related to leadership?

Passion is a compelling emotion or feeling that gives us energy. It so happens whenever we have passion, we seem to get this stamina that stays with us all the time and does not go away. We experience passion whenever we are enjoying what we are doing. When we become passionate about what we do, we strive to achieve what we desire. If our desire to lead people so that they can grow and become more by performing to their best, we begin to build influence with the people we work with. Continue reading...

For any organization, effective leadership and management are crucial for ensuring organizational success. Not only do these processes ensure that organizations focus on doing the right things but also on doing them right to the best advantage and impact on their customers.

Realizing this, the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (TATO) commissioned us to conduct Leadership and Management Training for its members.

The prestigious umbrella organization, TATO, has a total of over 250 members who are either tour operators or tourist hotels. As tour operators are, in most cases, also tourist hotel operators, these constitute the majority of members with hotel operators per se constituting about ten percent. The training was developed for company executives and senior managers following identification of training needs conducted by TATO. Continue reading...