The BusinessFitness Blog
Thoughts on topics to help you make more of your business…
When Priority Lists Become a Comfort Blanket
“Every organisation is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” – W. Edwards Deming, lecture and writings, 1980s The Ritual of Rewriting There is a moment, often at the start of a week or month, when the “to...
The Accumulation Problem: Leadership Pressure in Growing SMEs
“The great difficulty in life is to know when to persist and when to let go.” – Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, 1930 When everything still passes through you – even when it no longer needs to There...
When Everything Matters, Nothing Leads: A Reflection on Leadership Attention
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” — William James, lecture on philosophy and psychology, c. 1890s When leadership attention becomes thin The start of a year often brings renewed...
When Last Year’s Business Assumptions Becomes This Year’s Constraint
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” – John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936 The Year Changes. The Logic Often Doesn’t...
How Strategy in SMEs Unravels in Q1
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” – Robert Burns, To a Mouse, 1785 When Nothing Goes Wrong, Yet Something Is Lost Most SME CEOs reach a moment, often sometime in February, when they notice...
Strategic Clarity at the Start of a Year: What It Really Means
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal January and the Pressure for Answers January has a particular feel for leaders. Not loud, not overtly...
From Buttons to Boardrooms: Business Leadership Lessons That Still Matter in a World of Constant Change
What five decades in business taught me about judgement, resilience, and momentum From Buttons to Boardrooms: Setting the Scene Picture this: 1972, a dimly lit computer room in, then, Salisbury, Rhodesia. I'm a...
Business Strategy 2026: The 11 Priorities SME Leaders Must Get Right for Real Growth
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” – Winston Churchill Introduction – From Looking Back to Looking Forward If 2025 sorted the strong from the fragile, where should SME leaders...
5 Tips for Being a Leader in an Evolving Market – Guest Post
Learn how to lead your business through change by following actionable strategies. Discover five tips for being a leader in an evolving market. Navigating the constant shifts of the modern business landscape requires...
2025 Business Retrospective: How a BANI World Sorted the Strong from the Fragile
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” – Peter Drucker Introduction – 2025 Business Retrospective: Lessons, Patterns and the Road Ahead December...
The Agile Operating Model: How SME CEOs Turn Chaos into Control and Build Sustainable Growth
"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change." – Stephen Hawking Introduction: When Efficiency Meets Adaptability Two CEOs face the same supply chain disruption. The first spends three weeks chasing...
Building a Continuous Improvement Culture That Drives Operational Excellence
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle Introduction: Excellence as a Daily Discipline Many leaders assume operational excellence is the product of large-scale...