Is it just me or has been a really quiet start to 2006? Apart from the Harvard resignation, of course. Where are the books and ideas that are shaping the decade? We have heard a lot about management being the new Rock’n'Roll - but we seem to be reinventing, or rechurning the old ideas in leadership, organization, finance, and strategy. Who can create a better world of work, where both the bottom line and the success of the individual balance out - who’s working on it?

Business Intelegant is going to be looking and highlighting those who are.

I had a great seminar at TRR, Trygghetsrådet, on the 23rd - an excellent group - engaged, aware, and responsive. We laughed a lot; and if the feedback is anything to go by, they had a blast. The TRR seminars are interesting - how to condense management theory down to three hours yet still have impact. I do believe that knowing what work itself is makes life better, and that begins with understanding what good work looks like. And as always the Intelegant Approach applies: simple, intelligent, elegant.

TRR is a good organization - Swedish employment law protects both the employee and the employer - this means that cost cutting through staff reduction is a process rather than a decision - and TRR handles the employee out phase - in typically Swedish fashion this is not just a cursory meeting, but rather full coaching support, re-evaluation of career, a real effort to place people back at their appropriate level, in a job that matches them, etc; Many of their clients have had over 20 years with the same firm, held managerial posts and above and are over 50. They do an excellent job - some 80% of clients are placed within a suprisingly short time frame. One of their best strengths is that they get the client to learn about themselves, and to understand that there are options available to them - good work. My seminar is about getting the clients to look forward (In all aspects - going back to work, to life again etc;) and give them practical tools to make work a better experience.

But, more relevantly, what is good feedback? Well, the word comes from Kurt Lewin in the 1930s, who trained an an electrical engineer, so it is a direct response to the signals put out; and that would seem to give the first two guidelines: 1. the comments should be directed and relevant, and 2. feedback should be done within a short timeframe. The TRR participants gave good feedback because they highlighted what they liked (me!) and what they did not like (Not enough time!): as a result I have been given more seminars, with more time, and YES! more money…

I must add that TRR is a wonderful place to work - the client advisers are professional, genuine, authentic, and loving; but what has been a real eye-opener has been the administrator Mikael Dahlberg who has offered not only superb support (everything has run smoothly, everytime) but accurate and relevant insight that has helped the seminar content along.

Mikael is also extremely knowledgeable about things that guys talk about; namely, the heavy hitters among British bands of the 70s, prog rock - real music. It is not often these days I can have a conversation about Camel’s “The Snow Goose”, or which track on which Genesis album deserves the title the best, or who Renaissance where, and not draw blank or glazed faces - it is a hitching post for good breaks in our meetings.

Mikael not only takes his music seriously, he plays seriously too, check out Ad Dios’ at Theta Records. Ad Dios play a blend of celtic / new age / synth based work, sometimes a little conflictingly so for an old bible-basher like me, but it is interesting and arresting, and better to my ear than some ambient artists. They won COVR’s album of the year with Aquatica.

TRR is now taking my seminar out to other offices over Sweden; we hope this great relationship will continue to grow and grow.

It is a major day today - the new site is launched at www.intelegant.org .

Jonathan Morgan, who designed the site, of www.lookscankill.org has done an outstanding job: listening every step of the way, very fast response time, and a superb attitude. Very intelegant: simple, intelligent, elegant. A note of thanks also to Xen10, the hosting company, who offer the most complete package I have seen for £30 a year. Again, everything was arranged and done without fuss, all enquiries were answered instantly, and the back-end choices automatically include all the usual domain parking, chat, email (20), and then some really excellent advanced tools: mySQL, myphpchat, apache, agora shopping basket, fantastico etc; everything for e-commerce. Pretty good GUI, and all running on best pratice. The host is PhD in internet technology; which is kind of comforting. Jonathan put the site together, with WordPress which is a wiki /blog interface built into the web site allowing me to instantly change content without FTP or hassle. He learnt it faster than a rabbit learns to pass carrots: excellent alround design and delivery.