Who benefits from BA Cards
The BA Cards system is a very flexible tool which can be used in a wide range of circumstances. Anybody can use it to gain insights into any situation. However, it is designed for use in business and is most advantageous in that context. It covers all aspects of business and all industries – including non-profit making organisations.
The people who benefit most from BA Cards include:
In fact, anyone aspiring to progress in a profitable or non-profitable organisation who needs to:
- make decisions, diagnose and solve non-technical problems, generate ideas and strategic options, analyse/evaluate any aspect of business or relationships, or
- facilitate others in those activities
- educate others in those activities and in business and management generally
Seekers of personal career development
Business Adept Cards enhance your career prospects by:
- helping you to understand your skills and attributes
- allowing you to test them in ‘what if? Scenarios’
- exposing subconscious desires or fears about your career
- helping you to assess your likely compatibility and comfort in specific roles
- enabling you to demonstrate excellence in all aspects of your work
- building your self-confidence as a result
In brief, helping you to make better decisions about your career development choices.
Self-employed people
Working alone can be very satisfying and it can be lonely. There is no-one with whom to discuss problems and ideas or decisions on future business strategy. Although you can consult customers, suppliers and even competitors, they all have their own agenda. In Business Adept Cards you have an unbiased personal pocket consultant that will help diagnose and resolve problems, clarify relationship issues, and challenge or contribute ideas for change. The range of insight layouts covers most situations you are likely to meet. Using the cards will rationalise your thinking and improve your decisions.
Owner/managers of small businesses
Overseeing a small team may be rewarding. You are not alone and can discuss issues with employees. However, there may be no-one with whom to discuss problems and strategic issues that concern the business as a whole. Employees will have their own agenda and will generally defend the status quo. In Business Adept Cards you have an unbiased personal pocket consultant that will help diagnose and resolve problems, clarify relationship issues, and challenge or contribute ideas for change. They will enable you to stand back from your personal emotional investment in the copy and to rationalise your thinking. The range of insight layouts covers most situations you are likely to meet.
Career managers and professionals
When working as a manager or professional in a large organisation, you will have peers and superiors with whom to discuss business issues. Although you do not have the same emotional investment in the company as a sole trader or owner/manager, you will want to gain recognition and kudos for your expertise. Inevitably you are in constant competition to gain employment, keep in employment or earn promotion. You are striving to prove your competence in a demanding situation. Business Adept Cards will be useful in resolving issues that arise, enabling you to providing solutions and impress colleagues and employers. While Continuous Personal Development is one way of enhance your competence and credibility – using Business Adept Cards is another.
Business, executive and personal coaches/counsellors/mentors
Business Adept Cards are particularly beneficial to all those who work in the personal development and motivation area. They can help resolve your own issues and those of your clients.
Where BA cards add specific value is in overcoming a problem that all practitioners are familiar with – the difficulty of gaining the engagement of some clients. There are several avoidance tactics that clients use eg: constantly addressing symptoms and shying away from root causes; being in denial about unpalatable truths; reluctance to discuss sensitive or emotive issues; impatience and inattention; following red herring.
BA Cards deflect such tactics by providing an external focus which is non-threatening, depersonalises issues, and adds new perspectives. People find they can talk about the cards without becoming emotional and even have fun while doing so.
Improving client experience can only be good for your business, encouraging client loyalty and referrals.
Management consultants
Generally, management consultants are concerned with the way a business is being run. They may specialize in particular industries and/or individual functions such as finance, business development or business process. They may also limit their interest to small, medium or large organisations.
One of the handicaps for consultants is that to win a contract often means preparing a case or tender bid, investing a lot of time and energy without any prior indication of the likelihood of success. Business Adept Cards can be used:
- to assess the chance of success (and perhaps avoid expending energy on a lost cause)
- after an exploratory meeting with a prospective client, to gain insights into the true state of the client’s business, the key problems and potential solutions. This helps enhance the chances of a tender bid’s success by focusing on issues that matter most to the client and identifying both quick and longer-term fixes. It avoids needless analysis of aspects that are not of prime concern and enables a stringent attitude to costs.
Having won a contract, a consultant can use the cards throughout the project to test out strategies and avoid unnecessary effort. It could also be used with the client to tease out subconscious knowledge or prejudices.
BA Cards have the potential to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the consultancy process, increasing client satisfaction.
Large businesses and HR Departments
Anyone within a large organization can use Business Adept Cards to address a wide variety of business issues and turn the insights gained into benefits. However, the one aspect that may be of most interest is the synergy obtained through workshops based on the BA Card system. HR departments are often called upon to arrange group workshops and away days as team-building exercises. BA Cards can make such events much more effective, much more fun and therefore more memorable.
It has been proved many times that the cards generate team cooperation, enthusiasm, energy and new ideas – a real buzz. The insight layouts can be adapted to almost any situation – eg business, marketing or operational strategy, problem diagnosis and resolution, relationship analysis. By addressing the cards, all parties are encouraged to participate and finger-pointing is avoided. Any problems are depersonalised.
Whichever department arranges such a successful workshop must surely earn brownie points.
Business and management education
Because Business Adept Cards are based on a robust business process model, the system is ideal for business and management education. It aids understanding of business structures and the interrelationship of business functions. It also makes learning into fun.
The benefits of BA Cards for schools, colleges, universities and other educational centres include:
- Highly effective team building and strategy workshops for staff and students
- A tool for accelerated learning in a variety of teaching scenarios
- Improvement to the student experience by:
- enhancing communication and personal skills
- removing conflict in team working
- overcoming negative peer pressure and providing a positive confidence boost
- depersonalising emotive issues
- drawing out reticent and dyslexic students who find it easy to address images
- adding fun
- Gaining PR though improved student performance and commitment
- Value for money
- Trainer training and mentoring options
Although trialed in several educational establishments in UK, the full potential of the system has yet to be developed. If you are interested in working with us to extend its scope in this area, please contact us.
Gamification
What is Gamification?
According to Wikipedia, “Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems”.
In business gamification works by:
- making even routine tasks feel like games
- harnessing natural competitiveness and desire to be a winner
- rewarding the accomplishment of prescribed actions and behaviours
- celebrating an individual’s success in front of colleagues
It can be successful in, for example, increasing sales or improving productivity, though it can also encourage cut-throat competition and bullying.
The Business Adept Cards system has a more benign influence. It is fun to use and therefore qualifies as gamification but it promotes team spirit and enthusiasm rather than competition. It can be applied to:
- problem diagnosis and solution
- strategic planning and decision making
- clarification of complex scenarios
- team building and motivation
- personal development
- relationship management
- accelerated learning
Using BA Cards invites user engagement and commitment. The results may have a significant positive impact on company performance.