If you are looking for some concrete examples of how to deliver a presentation in a way that persuades even the most cynical listener to sit up and take notice, I have just the thing for you.

When I'm asked how organisations can create devoted customers, I reply "just keep doing great things to them". It seesm obvious, but creating 'devoted' customers is about consistently doing things that make customers feel valued.

What shouts out at me about the current financial crisis is an issue deeper than economics. It is the systemic breakdown in relationships and erosion of trust, one caused in large part by the fact that we're becoming more and more disconnected from each other.

Seeking better, simpler, faster or cheaper ways to do something should be everyone's business all the time. That includes all the heads of departments and divisions, whatever their function.

In times of adversity it is always better to see ourselves for what we are and face up to all the vulnerability that comes with it. Each tomorrow is another journey into the unknown. Far better to go into it with an open and inventive mindset than one which views success as just surviving another day.

Almost 2,500 years ago, Plato argued that the endless quest for pleasure affects the kind of leaders that democracies produce. Those who do rise to the top are unlikely to be motivated by concern for the common good, but rather by self-interest. Sound familiar?

I'm just a lowly manager. The big things – like global economic melt-down - are out of my control. So I'm going to turn off the news for a while and focus on the little things that make a manager's life at work so complicated.

Models of effective leadership are still based on men and the types of talents that they bring to such positions. So to tap into the talents that women bring to the workplace, our ideas about leadership need to be reexamined.

Management is out of date. Managers are failing to take advantage of a unique moment in history where the gathering pace of change opens the door to revolution and new types of organisation.

The best way to deal with a recession is not to hide until the storm has passed, it's to innovate your way out of it. If you sit still, you'll get left behind. While your competitors are full of uncertainty and doubt, you can introduce innovations that others cannot easily imitate.

We're always told to think outside the box, but often we're not thinking far enough out of it. Here are some ideas to help you expanding the boundaries of what you will allow yourself to think.