Mark Woods
Mark Woods has a background in engineering. After completing an award winning apprenticeship he completed a degree in mechanical and production engineering. He also has an MBA from Bradford University where he studied with Professor J.S. Oakland, the world’s first Professor of Total Quality Management. During the time he spent in industry, he gained extensive experience of both implementing new technology and strategic appraisal. Mark is now a managing partner of Statius Management Services, a management consultancy specialising in performance improvement, a subject on which Mark has published a number of papers and articles.
Critical Thinking and the Law of the Lid
Tips and resources As an owner or manager, you absolutely need critical thinking skills; you will need to incisively question strategies, targets, projects, reports and, most tricky of all, people....
A Business Interrogation
Are these the most vital 94 questions for owners/managers? Someone once said something along the lines of “Leadership isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about having the best questions.”...
What’s the Impact of Your Training?
Choosing the right evaluation methods You wouldn’t measure your weight with a ruler, would you? So, before you start collecting information about the impact of your training, you have to...
How To Evaluate Training
The definitive guide to thinking, tools and techniques You’ve spent big money, time, effort, blood, sweat and tears in creating your training program … but did it work? Was there...
Closing Skills Gaps
Top tips to improve your training needs analysis In the last edition, we looked at the structure for a training needs analysis (TNA). Now that you understand the importance of...
Training Needs Analysis
How to help your staff help you. Why is training, and even lifelong learning, important? Well, what our grandfathers learnt was pretty much the same as what their grandfathers learnt....
The Behaviour Change Cultivator
Is there an ideal approach? Management education and development is a lucrative business. Training provides us with new skills and concepts (head stuff), but do the things that are learnt...
Systems vs. Culture
Who wins? A hell of a lot of what we do is about implementing “systems”; we want to help make client company systems and processes slick. But there is a...
Appraisals? Let’s Sack Them
Why they are not ideal and an alternative method Where is a great journalist called Lucy Kellaway, once the irreverent management columnist at the Financial Times, now full-time teacher and...
What’s My Number?
Considerations in preparing for retirement … or not The “What’s my number?” question was a question originally posed to me some years ago by a guy called Adam Young, one...
