BOOK Southern Africa

Helena Dolny on Choosing a Coach in the Wild World of Coaching

by Tracey on 11 Mar 2010   |   

Team coaching is all the rage these days but getting the right person to bring out the best in you might be harder than you think. Coaching is a “soft” skill and regulation for the field is far from adequate. Helena Dolny, editor of Team Coaching: Artists at Work, takes a look at the questions you need to ask before hiring a coach:

My friend Oscar asked me what sounds like a simple question: “How do you choose a coach for yourself or your team?” Yet there is no easy answer to it.

Professor David Lane, a doyen in the British coach-training industry and active in setting up the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), was the keynote speaker at the launch of the Coaches and Mentors Association of South Africa (Comensa) a few years ago. He began his talk with a description of medieval guilds.

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• Team Coaching: Artists at Work: South African coaches share their theory and practice edited by Helena Dolny
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  EAN: 9780143025825
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Image courtesy Julie Ford People Solutions

Ann Bernstein Makes a Case for Business at Exclusive Books, Hyde Park

by Tracey on 05 Mar 2010   |   

There wasn’t much room to move at the launch of Ann Bernstein’s The Case for Business in Developing Economies at Exclusive Books’ Hyde Park branch on Thursday. Media and guests filled all the spaces between the shelves.

Penguin’s Alison Lowry welcomed guests, particularly the contingent of young, up-and-coming British publishers who are visiting South Africa to explore the industry – the 2009 UKYPE finalists, budding businesspersons in their own right. She called them the “most intriguing entrepreneurial brains in British publishing” and hoped they would learn much and enjoy their trip. Lowry then introduced guest speaker Bobby Godsell, Chairman of Business Leadership South Africa.

The UKYPE finalists

Godsell began by stating, “This book is a very important contribution to a very important debate”. He provided two reasons for this, saying the book is “a head-on, feisty response to the sentiment of anti-business” that prevails in certain sectors of African thinking; and that “it repeats strong challenges to the business community” about being good corporate citizens. Acknowledging Bernstein with a smile, Godsell stated that she “has never been shy to speak the truth to power”.

Godsell told how The Case for Business in Developing Economies is based on Bernstein’s South African experiences, but that it “also presents some good lessons for other developing economies”. He ended his speech with a challenge to the gathered crowd: “Let’s have the debate about what South African society should expect of its business community. And the business community should in turn be clear about what they can and cannot deliver – they are not Father Christmas, they’re here to produce goods and services in a profitable way honestly and by doing business that helps to build the nation. It’s not a debate about the state versus the market. We need a business community that has good South African values, we need a politics that can engage with those values and then we’ll have a smart state regulating a smart market – and what a good place that will be”.

Taking the mic, Bernstein touched on key ideas from the book, which include the question of the role of business in both just and unjust societies. She said that in the book she tries to “construct a developing country perspective on business and its social role”.

Bernstein acknowledged that companies around the world are being pressurised to do more to demonstrate what benefits they provide society, in addition to simply doing business. She said that one of the prevailing ideas is that the profit-making entity needs to redeem itself through “good work”; to pay reparations against the fact of its existence. She said there is now a need to restore the balance; for “the debate to take place within a much more comprehensive understanding of what just doing business actually contributes”, both directly and indirectly.

Citing India as a lesson for many in what a developing economy can accomplish, Bernstein said her book is in favour of the enterprise and the corporation. However, she was quick to clarify this statement: “I am not a business fundamentalist arguing that the business of business is only business. In the book much attention is paid to what else business and business leadership should be doing”.

In conclusion – and to applause – Bernstein stated that businesses need to “stop apologising for their existence, and stand up for what they do every day”.

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• The Case for Business in Developing Economies by Ann Bernstein
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  EAN: 9780143026525
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Helena Dolny: You Can Learn a Thing or Two from Horses

by Tracey on 04 Mar 2010   |   

Coaching expert Helena Dolny, editor of Team Coaching: Artists at Work, maintains that team coaches have much to learn from horses.

It was the last day of life coach training with Martha Beck. Surprise, surprise: we were asked to show up at an equestrian centre. Fiona Hoekstra of Equisight co-facilitated the programme.

I knew so little about horses. I’d managed to sit and stay on a horse on holiday rides, but nothing more. I arrived not fearful, but wary and respectful; I know a farm manager whose horse-loving daughter died as a result of a horse’s kick.

The lecture began. Horses apparently have special eyesight. From afar they can read human beings impeccably. They read the very essence of our being and decide how to respond.

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• Team Coaching: Artists at Work edited by Helena Dolny
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  EAN: 9780143025825
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Hyatt Regency to Host Marketing Guru Dale Hefer

by Amanda on 26 Feb 2010   |   

Join marketing and advertising entrepreneur Dale Hefer on “From Witblits to Vuvuzelas – Marketing in the New South Africa” at the Hyatt Regency in Johannesburg.

In a rapidly evolving industry, new and innovative ways of understanding target markets and go-to market opportunities are required.

Great marketing is always about people, ideas and uniqueness.

Hefer delivers compelling ideas on how to market South African products and services that make them irresistible. Her approach is witty, accessible and informative. In addition to talking about the South African target market and how to approach it, she will also touch on how an advertising agency works as well as mention some of the essential ingredients for an effective creative concept.

“The greatest myth in South Africa is this idea of a black market and a white market. There is just one market.”
- Victor Dlamini

Event Details

• Date: Friday, 05 March 2010
• Time: 7:00 PM for 9:00 PM
• Venue: Hyatt Regency
  191 Oxford Road, Rosebank,
  Johannesburg
• Cost per person: R 455.00
• Cost per table of 10: R 4389.00
• Book Here

The first 10 people to book and pay for this event are eligible for a free copy of the book! (Note: A table booking will be limited to 2 free books.)

About Dale Hefer

Dale Hefer started her company in 1998 as a one-woman show. Operating from a rented garage and using her boyfriend’s computer and money given to her by her sister as start-up capital, Dale soon grew the business to the R1-million mark. Today she employs a team of 40-plus and has projected earnings of R70 to R80 million. Dale is a graduate of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

As founder of the Chilibush Group of Companies, she has grown the company to include Advertising and Design, Investor Relations, Public Relations, Events and Consulting. Her company was voted a top-three small agency by the Financial Mail in 2004 and by Finweek in 2006.

Hefer was a Businesswoman of the Year finalist in 2002, a finalist of the Ernst & Young Global Emerging Entrepreneur Award in 2007 and was the Gauteng Businesswoman of the Year in 2008. In 2009 she was a finalist in the Top Women in Business and Government awards. She regularly lectures on marketing, advertising and entrepreneurship.

Book Details

• From Witblits to Vuvuzelas: Marketing in the New South Africa by Dale Hefer
  EAN: 9781770200296
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Joan Brunwasser Interviews Raj Patel, Author of The Value of Nothing

by Tracey on 25 Feb 2010   |   

Economist and author, Raj Patel, looks at the world differently to you and I. He digs below the surface to discover how much the things we eat, drink, wear and keep really cost us. The Value of Nothing succeeds previous works by Patel such as Stuffed and Starved.

Readers who aren’t familiar with your work will want to know what qualifies you to write such an ambitious book. Can you tell us a little about your background?

I was born in London from parents born in Kenya and Fiji and with ancestors in India. My family have been living globalisation from way back when it was called imperialism. I’ve studied mathematics, philosophy, economics, and sociology, with some of the best teachers in the UK and United States but actually none of this qualified me to write a book about how we might value our world differently. I’ve learned most of the ideas and insights that propelled this book forward from being an activist, and being lucky enough to meet and learn from ordinary people in social movements in South Africa, Mexico, India, Brazil and right here in North America. And even then, I don’t think I’ve got all the answers. What I’ve managed to do is pick up more good questions, though, and seen how people in different democratic experiments have created ways to learn from their mistakes.

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• The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel
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  EAN: 9781846272172
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• Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System by Raj Patel
  EAN: 9781846270116
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Photo courtesy OpEdNews

Book Launch: The Case for Business in Developing Economies by Ann Bernstein

by Tracey on 22 Feb 2010   |   

Penguin Books and Exclusive Books take pleasure in inviting you to meet Ann Bernstein at the launch of her book, The Case for Business in Developing Economies.

Bobby Godsell, chairman of Business Leadership South Africa, will introduce the author. We look forward to seeing you there!

Event Details

• Date: Thursday, 04 March 2010
• Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
• Venue: Exclusive Books, Hyde Park, Shop U30, Hyde Park Corner
  Jan Smuts Avenue
  Craighall, Johannesburg
• Guest Speaker: Bobby Godsell
• RSVP: hydepark@exclusivebooks.co.za, 011 325 4298

Book Details

• The Case for Business in Developing Economies by Ann Bernstein
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9780143026525
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Advertising: We're Still the Wild West Says Dale Hefer (And It's a Good Thing)

by Amanda on 17 Feb 2010   |   

Dale Hefer, founding director of Chillibush, is a big name in advertising and with reason. Her company, which she started in a garage, has grown into a real force in the industry.

At least part of Hefer’s success is the amount of time she spends getting to know her target market – she extrapolates on this and on her new book From Witblits to Vuvuzelas in a candid interview with Angelique Searrao:

Dale Hefer remembers the first day she knew she was meant to work in advertising.

She showed up at an advertising company 20 years ago sporting a mullet, a shirt that tied at her waist and fluorescent shorts. Very “cutting edge”, she recalls.

She sat in on a boring marketing pitch when her boss, who was lounging in his chair, stood up, clutched his crotch and said, “It's got no balls”.

“I knew from that moment it was the job for me.”

• Read the complete article in IOL Tonight

Book details

• From Witblits to Vuvuzelas: Marketing in the New South Africa by Dale Hefer
  EAN: 9781770200296
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From Witblits to Vuvuzelas Launched at Chillibush - Where Else?

by Amanda on 08 Feb 2010   |   

The launch of Dale Hefer’s From Witblits to Vuvuzelas at her Chillibush offices off Jan Smuts road in Johannesburg was superbly professional yet comfortably relaxed. The offices blend the old and the new in an architecturally innovative building, with metallic frames and wooden floors structuring an eye-pleasing mix of solid wood furniture and the latest ad-agency technological bling.

Guests were welcomed with champagne, orange juice and mini metal buckets filled with a colourful arrangement of chillies, along with press packs. Hefer greeted each guest personally, trailed by a friendly Yorkshire Terrier and Rottweiler – who are as at home in the stylish offices as are the employees, (several of whom were still at their desks!).

From Witblits to Vuvuzelas is about marketing in South Africa, filled with stories based on Hefer’s experiences growing the Chillibush group of companies from a rented garage in Parkhurst in 1998 to the multi-million rand business with 40 employees that it is today. She was introduced by the Chillibush chairman Victor Dlamini who called guest’s to the table by with a mighty blow of a handy vuvuzela. Dlamini, who wrote the book’s foreword, said, “The vuvuzela: you either love it or hate it but you can’t ignore it – much like the lady next to me! This book is just what the marketing world needs.”

Hefer’s humourous use of personal anecdotes became apparent as she described her first day in advertising when she donned her 80’s “cutting edge kit” complete with blue knickerbockers, plastic black Lady Di shoes and three studs in her left ear and found herself in the boardroom with the big boss as her creative director put forward his pitch. After moments of tense silence the big boss sprang out of his chair. Hefer said, “He thrusts his pelvis forwards, grabs his crotch, ‘It just has no fucking balls,’ he yells. I immediately know that I am in the right industry and I have just learnt my first lesson in effective communication.”

Hefer spoke about how the marketing world has, “become very theoretical – we use words we don’t need. Marketing has become up its own bottom with all those dreaded ‘P’s’ popping up all over the place.” She continued, “The downfall is advertisers sitting in their ivory towers thinking they know their target market without really exploring it.”

Hefer wanted to call the book, “But What about the Bleks” – the title of her second chapter, inspired by an black marketing company executive who regularly asked this question in a whisper. Hefer seeks to dispel the myth of the separation of black and white markets, and says “bollocks” to terms like “Black Diamonds”. “The emerging market has already emerged, there is a main market and we have to be very careful about how we navigate these waters,” she said.

Read the book for much, much more – the light mixed with the serious, the sacred mixed with the profane… and downright hilarious!

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Book details

• From Witblits to Vuvuzelas: Marketing in the New South Africa by Dale Hefer
  EAN: 9781770200296
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New from Ann Bernstein The Case for Business in Developing Economies

by Tracey on 05 Feb 2010   |   

In a climate in which companies are frequently painted as social outlaws, and where much pressure is exerted on them fundamentally to change their ways, business for the most part takes the line of appeasement and acquiescence. In corporate circles this acquiescence is evident everywhere and has given rise to the burgeoning industry of “corporate social responsibility”. Should business be going along with this?

The current conversation about business and society is dominated by the perspectives and interests of those who live in rich western countries. Activists, analysts and others – however well intentioned – do not grasp the realities of poverty and the hard choices of development outside the rich industrialised world. As a result, the debate about business, “responsibility” and corporate involvement in development is distorted, with few voices from developing countries being heard and the positive legacy of business remaining unacknowledged.

In The Case for Business in Developing Economies, Ann Bernstein argues forcefully and cogently that a new approach and a new discourse are required to cut through an increasingly flawed conversation, one which has potentially dangerous consequences for the poor and for developing countries in particular. Informed by many years of living, working, and championing the role of business in growth and development in a middle-income developing country, Bernstein urges business not to let such attacks stand unchallenged. It must find the confidence and strategic vision to stop apologising, develop its own public agenda, and start propagating the phenomenal benefits of competitive capitalism for the less developed countries of the world.

About the author

Ann Bernstein is the founding director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) in Johannesburg. She is acknowledged as one of South Africa’s leading development experts and is a strong proponent of the importance of economic growth in promoting democracy and sustainable development. Well known internationally, she travels extensively, regularly addressing conferences and other meetings both in South Africa and abroad. She is a regular commentator on radio and television and frequently contributes articles to journals and newspapers on a wide variety of issues.

Book details

• The Case for Business in Developing Economies by Ann Bernstein
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  EAN: 9780143026525
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Book Launch: From Witblits to Vuvuzelas: Marketing in the New South Africa by Dale Hefer

by Amanda on 01 Feb 2010   |   

Dale Hefer, author of From Witblits to Vuvuzelas, invites you to celebrate the launch of her book at the advertising agency whose rise it chronicles, Chillibush.

In From Witblits to Vuvuzelas Hefer shares a wealth of advice for South African marketers in witty, straight-talking style. The book provides guidelines based on the author’s years of experience with clients and incorporates invaluable insight from local marketing professionals. Each chapter contains personal anecdotes that illustrate key concepts, and focuses strongly on our diverse culture and the challenges and pitfalls that marketers encounter in this country. From Witblits to Vuvuzelas is an essential tool for anyone in the marketing industry or for those who want to enter the world of marketing.

See you at the launch!

Event Details

• Date: Thursday, 04 February 2010
• Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
• Venue: Chillibush Offices, 58 Jan Smuts Ave, Forest Town
  Johannesburg | Map
• RSVP: Tracy, tracy@chillibush.co.za, 011 646 7152

Book Details

• From Witblits to Vuvuzelas: Marketing in the New South Africa by Dale Hefer
  EAN: 9781770200296
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!