Consultant, CEO of Promontory Growth and Innovation (PGI), and author of the insightful and transformational book How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things: Breaking the 8 Hidden Barriers that Plague Even the Best Businesses, Neil Smith, describes how organizations must avoid doing the really dumb things that mystify their employees and customers. Neil Smith offers the advice that every firm has two things in the form of great employees with innovative ideas; and hidden barriers that prevent those changes from taking place. Neil Smith provides insights into those eight hidden barriers and shares proven techniques for overcoming them successfully. Neil shows leaders how to improve performance, while simplifying operations to transform a company culture into one that welcomes new ideas, and avoids doing dumb things. Neil Smith offers his fast, proven, and internally driven process to crash through those barriers, and unleash the multitude of great ideas waiting to be put into action in every company.
Neil Smith is my internet radio show guest on Blog Business Success; hosted live on BlogTalkRadio.
The show airs live on Tuesday, June 26, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time; 5:00 pm Pacific Time.
Consultant, CEO of Promontory Growth and Innovation (PGI), and author of the insightful and transformational book How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things: Breaking the 8 Hidden Barriers that Plague Even the Best Businesses, Neil Smith, describes how organizations must avoid doing the really dumb things that mystify their employees and customers. You will learn:
* Why otherwise astute companies make really head scratching mistakes
* How every organization has great people with tremendous new ideas
* Why eight hidden barriers within organizations prevent that change
* How to create a company culture that overcomes those eight unseen barriers
Neil Smith (photo left) has more than 15 years experience leading large-scale performance improvements and, before that, spent 6 years serving as the CEO of a manufacturing company.
His manufacturing experience helped Neil to develop the PGI approach to dramatic profit improvement for Fortune 750 companies. The PGI Promise process had its origins in the financial services industry in the early 1990’s. Neil was able to demonstrate that techniques learned in banking could be applied even more effectively to other industries, when he led a ground-breaking project in the transportation industry in 1998. Other successes followed.
In 2000, Neil first showed that the techniques could be applied to large companies when he led a hugely successful project at a 23,000 person company. In 2001, the same techniques were used for the first time with a company which was not only large and global, but could be considered a true industry leader. Working with the CEO and his team, and his Promontory colleague Gene Ludwig, Neil demonstrated that there are huge opportunities in even the best of companies.
Over the last few years, a number of the companies Neil has worked with are rated among the best in their industries including healthcare, banking, food manufacturing, distribution and insurance. He has a flair for making the best companies even better.
Before buying the food manufacturing company in a leveraged buyout, Neil spent five years with McKinsey & Company, working in New York and London, and helped to build McKinsey's early work in Brazil and Indonesia. As a senior member of the change practice, he pioneered client growth initiatives and led innovative restructurings. His clients include television, healthcare, hotels, steel manufacturing, banking and insurance companies.
Before business school Neil was a journalist in London, working with the BBC and the London Sunday Times.
Neil has an M.B.A. with honors from the Harvard Business School, where he was a Knox Fellow. He also has a B.A. with honors in Physics and Economics from the University of Keele in England.
Neil enjoys rugby, soccer, cricket, and baseball, and collects ancient British coins.
Neil is British and serves on the International Advisory Board of British American Business, Inc. (the British American Chamber of Commerce). He is a member of a Harvard Business School alumni committee and is Chairman of the U.S. Alumni of the University of Keele.
My book review of How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things: Breaking the 8 Hidden Barriers that Plague Even the Best Businesses by Neil Smith.
Listen live on Tuesday at 8:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Pacific time.
If you miss this very informative show, it will be available for free download as a podcast for iPod, iTunes, and MP3 players; or play it right on your computer. To download this, or any other of my guest interviews, go to the Blog Business Success host page and click on Archived Segments. Once there, click on the podcast icon at the end of the episode description, to download the show free of charge for your listening enjoyment. You can also subscribe to the show feed.
To call in questions for my guest, the number is: (347) 996-5832
Let's talk with consultant, CEO of Promontory Growth and Innovation (PGI), and author of the insightful and transformational book How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things: Breaking the 8 Hidden Barriers that Plague Even the Best Businesses, Neil Smith, as he describes how organizations must avoid doing the really dumb things that mystify their employees and customers. Neil Smith offers the advice that every firm has two things in the form of great employees with innovative ideas; and hidden barriers that prevent those changes from taking place. Neil Smith provides insights into those eight hidden barriers and shares proven techniques for overcoming them successfully. Neil shows leaders how to improve performance, while simplifying operations to transform a company culture into one that welcomes new ideas, and avoids doing dumb things. Neil Smith offers his fast, proven, and internally driven process to crash through those barriers, and unleash the multitude of great ideas waiting to be put into action in every company on Blog Business Success Radio.
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