We are getting around 2000 human visitors per month and I know nothing about who you are or why you visit.  I’d really love to close that gap and learn a little about what brings you here, what you like, what you are looking for…

Please, please take a moment to leave an entry in the Guest Book, it will not be used for anything other than improving the site unless you specially request otherwise.

This Tag cloud allows you to find posts that match your interests quickly, hover your mouse over the cloud to move it, then click to select

Kieron Scott-Woodhouse, from Shepherds Bush in London, a 23 year old student, has designed a new Android phone clad in bamboo, destined initially for the growing Chinese market (Click the picture to see their website.)  You have to admit that is fresh thinking, instead of oil-based plastics, they use totally renewable resources which are strong, light and very stylish.

This kind of reframing of limitations and expectations is vital in every business and frankly every life.  We are like the elephants who are trained from babies to accept a rope tether.  Of course the adult elephant could easily break it but having been used to this fragile restraint since they were young, they never test it.  We need to challenge our habits and thinking.  Most limitations are not real, but arbitrary or self-imposed.  This were an external facilitator or coach can be so useful, by simply challenging people’s ideas of what they can and cannot do.  It is worth having one person in a meeting whose job it is simply to ask “Why?”

“Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.”  Gilbert K. Chesterton

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.”   Richard Bach

As we approach the second anniversary of Carys’ death, it feels appropriate to take stock and see how things have changed.  Normally when you live your day-to-day life, one day feels much the same as another… until something seismic happens.  We don’t really recognise Change when it creeps up on us gently, one day we are full of youth and vigour and the next we are feeling our age and looking back with nostalgia.

We had our world changing event 2 years ago and suddenly nothing would be the same again.  That isn’t the same as saying nothing would be good again, but at the time it felt that way.  Two years on, my youngest is half way through the university course, that he hadn’t even started back then.  My middle child is months from leaving the university she had only just joined two years ago.  My eldest has changed job and left home.  I spend my time rather differently.  I’m more selective about the work that I do and how I find it.  I recognise I have other priorities these days and have two roles to fill for my children and a gaping hole to fill in my own life.  Much as one might wish it otherwise, these things don’t magically fix themselves, you have to get into the hole and fill it with your own labour.

I write this piece partly in the knowledge that there are others out there who are at a different and darker part of their journey and in the hope that this might help them, and also as a reflection on the different faces of Change, one passive, that sculpts, shapes and erodes without you noticing and the other active that doesn’t happen if you don’t make the effort and do the work.  We so often deceive ourselves into thinking that the former won’t happen and the latter will… Life just isn’t like that!  In both our personal lives and business ones we need to take responsibility for both faces of Change and act to make our plans, our dreams and our desires take shape.

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”  John Wooden

“Know how to live the time that is given you.”   Dario Fo

I listened to Major General Andrew Mackay talking about what he perceives as key shortcoming in the Army’s management of the conflict in Afghanistan.  He suggests that in modern warfare, in which the civilian population’s ‘hearts & minds’ have a significant impact, it is essential to understand their thinking, needs and values if you wish to influence them and their behaviour.  This seems pretty elementary stuff in the field of business, but if it is being overlooked by an institution as big as the British Army, then perhaps it bears examination.  In warfare, and change management, you have to win the hearts an minds of the populace.  No one behaves in a way that damages their self interest, so you have to understand how they perceive and measure this.  Whether it is in the size of their harvest, the amount in their wage packet, or the rate of expansion of the local cemetery, you simply have to understand it, if you wish to influence it.

The war in Afghanistan has cost the British taxpayers something like £18b, and there is no clear success or endpoint yet, certainly little visible R.O.I.  Most companies don’t have this kind of budget for an unclear result, so remember, step 1 in any change program, define a clear vision of what success looks like (for everyone involved, not just you!), step 2, is understand the WIFM factor for the people affected (not just you!)

How many people have died needlessly in Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and elsewhere in the world because of cultural ignorance and insensitivity of the leaders of those who are trying to help?  You can’t bomb your way to peace, and you can’t bully your way to harmony…

Stuart Lancaster, the new interim England rugby coach, has stepped into the breach created by Martin Johnson’s post-World Cup resignation.  He faces a dilemma that many bosses face when entering into a new leadership role, how to find the balance between experience and new ideas / capabilities, between proven performers and youthful enthusiasm and vigour.  When you step into a new company or role, you can see much that is wrong with it (and it is easy to talk this up), however jettison too much of the old guard and you destroy the backbone of the organisation.

He is faced with creating a new culture and setting out his vision of how he wants England to perform and behave.  To clarify his selection criteria.  It is never so easy to send a clear message as when you are new in the job.  People are looking to see what you stand for and will interpret your actions, even if you don’t spell out your thinking, so beware leaving it others to say what you are thinking!

There is no single right answer but it is important to be clear about what you are trying to do and what your criteria are.  People will always debate the How, but hopefully you can rally support around What you are trying to accomplish.  So in Stuart’s case, his job is to show he is building a squad capable of challenging for and hopefully winning the next World Cup, who the right players are is anyone’s (and everyone’s!) guess…

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”   St Francis Of Assisi

“What the caterpillar calls the end the rest of the world calls a butterfly.”   Lao Tzu quotes

We all know that it is a challenging economic environment out there, but my year has started with some rather different challenges.  The first client has had to challenge their leadership team and make some hard decisions about who fits; the second needs to challenge the firm’s way of working in order to succeed.  I was asked how to win a million pounds of extra business and I said that the people who could make an ally out of the current financial situation were most likely to be winners.  In a ‘steady state’ economy people tend to follow ‘steady as she goes’ strategies, as encapsulated by the phrase “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”, but in these turbulent times more radical courses are not contemplated but necessary.

Why not start your new year by herding up your sacred cows and culling the herd a little?

“Sacred cows make the best hamburger”  Mark Twain

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”  Mark Twain

I was listening to Prof John Butterworth talk on Friday about the search for the Higgs Boson  particle.  This is a theoretical particle that is a necessary part of of our current model of the Universe, but as yet, no one has proved it actually exists, so that is why they built the Cern collider to prove if the theory is correct or not.  At present the search is about 80% complete.  Prof Butterworth was asked why he sounded excited by the idea that they might find out that they were wrong and he  said that “It is when you realise you don’t know something that you start learning new stuff.”  I thought this was wonderful.  He then said “It is very hard in research to pose good questions”  and that is also totally true of facilitation.  Often a good question unlocks whole new fields of possibilities.  Leaders ask good questions.  Discovering that you don’t know something, that things are not as you had believed them to be changes the way you view the world and this enables you to begin changing too!

“Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Alice in Wonderland.

I was up at St Pauls yesterday, and visited the protest camp.  I have heard various comments from ‘experts’ and commentators condemning the fact that all these people have different agendas, and the fact that they have no clear message or agenda.  I disagree.  I think it can be very important, and valuable to recognise that something isn’t working and to say so clearly.  Indeed it is the first step towards Change (see step 1 of our 5 step Change model.)

These issues are complex, and they impact many people negatively.  It is little wonder that these people don’t have a solution.  It is okay, however, for them to tell our leaders that they need to be focusing their energy on this issues.  Change begins with the recognition that something isn’t working!

It is now 20 months since Carys died, and many people have told me that that is no time.  Subjectively it feels like an eon.  I feel separated from my previous life by a rift he size of the Grand Canyon.  

I realised something the other day which, on reflection,  seemed important.  It maybe be glaringly obvious to everyone else, but was a revelation to me.  I realised that we heal from the outside inwards.  Which is to say that all of the outward facing bits seem to be fully adjusted and we are coping with our lives; business is being done, lessons are being attended, houses cleaned and meals cooked.  However, it feels like I have a hollow centre.  The bit which contained the meaning and purpose, is empty.  I am also very aware that all the bits people can see are working well, but of course they don’t realise that the motor force is missing.

I write this more in the hope that it may help someone else find their way through this maze or perhaps better guide and support a loved one…

I loved this story.  Here is a major telecom company who are usually all about highly technical innovations who have discovered a quicker, cheaper way to dig a hole!  It only goes to show that we should never fail to re-examine how we do what we do.  So much of the way we work, the way we live goes unexamined and taking a fresh perspective often reaps unexpected fruit, like BT and their new spade.  When you believe that you already are doing everything the best way you fail to challenge yourself and your thinking.  If you create a culture or a mind-set that enables/encourages people to ask questions and challenge assumptions, then innovation flows.

“Innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem.”  Steve Jobs

I was listening to Professor Michael Marmot talk today.  He is an epidemiologist and studies what makes us ill / adversely affects our well-being, and to his surprise, discovered that they are one and the same thing. In seeking to find out what caused stress etc in the civil service, he discovered, against all his presumptions, that far from it being tough at the top and the stress of high powered jobs making more senior civil servants more ill, that the lower down the greasy pole you worked the more likely you were to suffer from ill health.  In other words, your well being was in direct proportion to your ability to control your destiny.

In a workplace that is growing increasingly more competitive due to the economic downturn, it means that more and more people are forced to take jobs on terms that they would otherwise not accept and this will in turn adversely affect their health.  For the individual the consequences are obvious, however, for the company, it means lots of hidden costs in terms of disruption and efficiency when they force people into doing things that they are not really best suited for or not interested in.  

So whether you are a boss or a minion, it is directly in your interest to ensure that you work in an environment that enables you to have some control over what you do.  Think about it, companies like Google encourage its employees to spend a day a week working on projects of their own choice, as a mean of encouraging original thinking and innovation.  The fact that it also boosts morale and well-being is just another plus.

From Yes Minister:-

Humphrey: Minister, a Minister can do what he likes.
Hacker: It’s the people’s will. I am their leader. I must follow them!