It’s an exciting week for the Global Integration team in Europe this week – our spring/summer  team meeting for Europe is happening on Thursday/Friday, so the team will all be together in England.

Outside of this, Phil Stockbridge will be in London on Tuesday and Wednesday, John Bland will be in the north of England, and Rod Farnan, Tony Poots and Kevan Hall at various places across the south.

In the USA, both Tim Mitchell and Robyn Green will be on the East Coast, and in Asia TH Ong will be in Singapore early in the week and Shanghai (PRC)  later in the week.

Looking ahead to next week, our team meeting for the Americas is happening, making our team there slightly less available

John Bland will be in Belgium, and Kevan Hall will be in the USA for part of the week. Robyn Green will be in St. Louis (USA) early in the week. And finally: we’re enjoying that Phil will be in Philadelphia (Phil Stockbridge that is).

We hope you’ll catch up with us soon. You can reach out directly to our consultants, or let our regional offices take the strain and do the hard work for you. It’s what they’re there for!

May 14 2012

As a way of giving back to the community that helped make our Global Working video competition a success, we’ve created a report sharing what we learned from the process.

Clicking on the report below should enlarge it on your screen. If it fails to pop up, the link above it should take you directly there:

May 04 2012

Anyone who’s spent any time with our CEO Kevan Hall will undoubtedly know two things about him: one, he’s a Brit; and two, he supports Reading FC.

A word to anyone who thinks football involves guys with large shoulder pads charging down a pitch and handling odd shaped balls – in the UK, soccer is called football. It’s played with feet, so Kevan would claim that this is far more logical. American football is more like rugby (except the Brits scrap the ‘big as a buffalo’ shoulder pads).

All of which is a short cultural diversion that takes us to the real point of this blog post, which is that Kevan’s ‘on record’ as noting a pattern: the last management book he wrote, Speed Lead, coincided with Reading’s promotion to the premier league.  And just as he pushed ‘send’ on his new book, off to the publisher for review, Reading again earned promotion.

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May 04 2012

Kevan Hall, Global Integration

Global Integration offers tailored courses rather than open access, but anyone in the UK looking for a one day workshop at a reasonable rate (£250) may be interested in the one day matrix organization workshop being offered by Ashridge Business School, at which Global Integration’s CEO, Kevan Hall, will be leading the afternoon session.

The matrix is a reality for most large companies now: in global organizations people work across geographies and multiple product sets. Tension points abound and even organisations structured into simple business units have central functions that impose policies and services on decentralised units.

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May 03 2012

May Day, May 1, is a traditional spring festival which, in the Northern hemisphere, has its origins in Pagan festivals – notably that of Beltane, the celebration of spring – adapted over time as Christianity spread. It’s exactly six months before All Hallows (Hallowe’en).

Across Northern Europe, there are festivities. In Estonia,for example, Volbriöö is celebrated throughout the night of 30 April with folk dressing up as witches in a mood of celebration, leading into ‘Spring Day’ today, May 1 (Kevadpüha). In Finland, ‘Walpurgis day’ (Vappu) is a massive carnival, leading into a day of picnics on May 1. Walpurgisnacht in Germany on April 30 has stories of witches meeting to greet the spring. Valborgsmässoafton or simply Valborg in Sweden sees huge bonfires. Traditionally in Britain, rites included dancing around a maypole.

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May 01 2012

With Spring in the air, and a spring in their stride, our intrepid team of training consultants are out and about: if you want to hook up with any of them whilst they’re in your area/close by, you can contact them directly, or contact your closest Global Integration office and let us do the co-ordinating for you!

In the Americas this week, both John Bland and T.H. Ong will be in New York. Robyn Green’s also on the East Coast for most of the week, including Westport, and Tim Mitchell’s going to be in Oregon for the most part.

In the UK, Rod Farnan’s in the South of England, and we hope he’s taking it a little easier than usual as it’s his birthday – Happy Birthday, Rod.

CEO Kevan Hall is darting around in the UK doing various things related to his new book, a sequel to Speed Lead, which is written and should appear on the shelves the next year, as being in London for part of the week.

If you’d like a little more notice, next week Robyn Green will be in Germany should you want to catch her whilst she’s there, Later in the month John Bland will be in Belgium.

Various team members will be in Henley, in the UK, at different times in the month.

In Asia, Phil Stockbridge will be in Kuala Lumpar for just over a week in a week or so – a great chance to catch up with a key team member whilst he’s there.

May 01 2012

Today we publish an abridged version of a leadership article by training consultant John Bland – in particular on the role of money in motivation.

People often put a lot of money and energy into their hobbies and interests, sometimes more than they put into work.

Why is that, and what are we missing in the world of work?

Key software programmes such as Linux or Mozilla Firefox were (and are) developed by IT specialists, unpaid and in their spare time.

Just think about that. They spend their day doing normal work and then in the evening and at the weekend they spend their spare time ‘working’  for free.

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Apr 24 2012

If you want to connect in person with any of the Global Integration senior team this week, here’s where you’ll find them:

Europe’s the place to be:

In the UK, CEO Kevan Hall will be in London, Brighton and Edinburgh. Phil Stockbridge will be in London, Windlesham and Oxford. John Bland will also be in Oxford for part of the week.

Rod Farnan will be in Brussels (Belgium)

And in the US, Robyn Green and Tim Mitchell will be on the East Coast, and TH Ong will be in California.

Feel free to reach out to any of them individually, or contact your nearest Global Integration office and let us take the strain for you.

Apr 23 2012

If you’re interested in matrix management, global working or virtual teams, and are looking to catch up with one of senior team of training consultants this week, this is where you may catch up with them in person:

In Europe:

In the UK, Kevan Hall can be found in the Midlands (Redditch), Tony Poots in Oxfordshire and Rod Newing in Sussex.

In France, Tim Mitchell and John Bland will both be in Paris at various times this week.

Phil Stockbridge will be in Moscow all week (Yes, we know – Russia is mostly in Asia. However, it is ‘transcontinental’ and the capital is, we’re told, on the European continent.)

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Apr 16 2012

Most of our senior training team will be taking a break next week, with the exceptions of Rod Farnan (Richmond, London) and T.H.Ong, who’ll be in the PRC (People’s Republic of China) in Shanghai and Beijing.

To make arrangements to meet up with any of them, we suggest calling one of our regional offices and letting us do the hard work for you!

If you’re taking a break, make we wish you a happy and peaceful Easter, Passover –  or chocolate fest.

Apr 05 2012