Latest Posts


  • The Problem With Seeing People As Vulnerable

    Never mistake your Twitter feed for your country — Nick Cohen (@NickCohen4) December 12, 2019 Now, more than ever, it’s easier to exist within a bubble. We spend a lot more time communicating through screens than talking face to face.… Continue reading

    The Problem With Seeing People As Vulnerable
  • Why You Shouldn’t Ask Customers What They Want

    The customer is always right.  If you involve customers –  you’ll make better decisions.  The only problem with statements like these is that they don’t seem to account for all those occasions when the customer wasn’t right. They don’t explain… Continue reading

    Why You Shouldn’t Ask Customers What They Want
  • Redesigning Organisations For Positive Deviance

    What if the traditional way that we think change happens is all wrong? What if our focus on the spread and scale of innovative business solutions isn’t the answer – but is part of the fundamental problem? In 1990, an… Continue reading

    Redesigning Organisations For Positive Deviance
  • The Complex Task of Simplicity

    If you want to make things truly simple to use by your customers, you will nearly always have to make your organization take on more complexity – Gerry McGovern Yesterday, I delivered a talk at a conference that was aimed at… Continue reading

    The Complex Task of Simplicity
  • How To Keep Focussed (And Remain Sane) In A World Of Complex Problems

    In our heart, we know the solution does not lie in reforming silo by silo but in organizing our silos the way people organize their lives, so that the neighbourhood becomes our primary unit of analysis and change – Cormac… Continue reading

    How To Keep Focussed (And Remain Sane) In A World Of Complex Problems
  • An A-Z of Office Jargon

    Apparently – ‘Touch Base” is the most-hated office phrase for a second year in a row. Certainly – it’s a mainstay of contact requests I get from Linkedin. And if I fail to touch base I usually get someone ‘circling… Continue reading

    An A-Z of Office Jargon
  • How Technology Can Increase Collaboration And Build Trust

    This post is an shortened version of a plenary talk delivered in Cardiff for the Wales Audit Office  Depending on your age it’s likely that the two things you were not taught in school were: a) how to collaborate effectively… Continue reading

    How Technology Can Increase Collaboration And Build Trust
  • The Smartest People Will Never Work For You

    Joy’s law is the principle that “no matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”. Bill Joy, the computer engineer to whom it’s attributed argued that if you rely solely on your own employees, you’ll… Continue reading

    The Smartest People Will Never Work For You
  • a short post about death

    Even during the most pivotal moments of our lives we are only a few minutes away from being digitally distracted. Twelve to be precise. We check our phones for new messages every 12 minutes.  Four weeks ago today we were… Continue reading

    a short post about death
  • Why Do We Hate Our Offices?

    If you are working in an office today you will be interrupted – or you will interrupt yourself – every 3 minutes. And what’s worse is it will take most of us up to 23 minutes to recover from that distraction. If… Continue reading

    Why Do We Hate Our Offices?