When did you last try something new? Or test a brilliant new insight? What have you done differently in your job recently? There’s a trap that’s easy to fall into – improvement comes from just doing the same, only better/harder/more efficiently. There’s so much to do, there’s only so much Read more…
Part of my time this year is being spent as an adviser to two organisations that are merging. It makes an interesting example of a merger process. All relevant posts on the process are collected under the Merger tag. I set the scene for the Merger last month in this Read more…
I’m currently busy putting together a new talk for tomorrow night’s Henley Business School Alumni Medical Suppliers Forum, editing an article and writing two others – one for Melcrum on how negativity and dissent make an organisation more healthy and another for the Medinge Journal on Branding and Complexity. And Read more…
Sometimes it feels like an article pursues you around until you pay attention. (The truth, of course, is far more mundane – just that it is a piece that resonates among the various media sources I go to.) The latest examples is an article in The American Scholar, originally from Read more…
One of the main planks to our client approach is that, as part of each project, we work with willing people in the client organisation to give them the skills to continue the work long after we’ve left. There are two reasons for doing this that matter – an attitude Read more…
Spent today at the Informatology conference at Russell Square today – some great conversations and presentations. As part of the Leadership session, I spoke briefly, then we ran a 45 minute anecdote circle – some great stories coming out of it. Thanks to all who joined in! I promised I’d Read more…
An interesting, if slightly underdone, article in today’s FT: Management – The corporate memory-makers. Some interesting points in it – the idea of using oral histories is of course a good one. (Given that I’m running another workshop on how to do them in-house on 18th February with Melcrum, I Read more…
Thanks to everyone at the Leeds Castle leadership event today – a whistle-stop challenge on communications, with an abbreviated Anecdote Circle thrown in. At the break a few of us were talking about The Future, Backwards and, naturally, I recommended Gary Klein’s Sources of Power. The slides are here: Download Read more…
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s workshop at the KCUK conference. Various odds and sods off the back of the session: My presentation slides are here The basketball video I mentioned. The Harvard Business Review article on complexity/leadership/decision-making by Dave Snowden Dave’s in-depth article on complexity and its Read more…
I’ve recently been in a number of environments where everybody has been so keen to encourage positive discussions that I’ve ended up coming away with a flat, slightly unreal feeling – interesting conversations that never really reached any depth. It’s reminded me of the big “hoorah” sessions that organisations regularly Read more…