Latest Posts


  • Efficiency Isn’t Always Effective

    Being efficient is not half as effective as conventional management would like to think. Working across health, the criminal justice system, mental health, housing, social care, or education requires us to take a whole person view of someone. It requires… Continue reading

    Efficiency Isn’t Always Effective
  • How To Behave In A Legacy Organisation

    “I was a Legacy manager in a Legacy organisation. We were mainly caretaking a broken model, trying to make it function better.” Kate Davies It’s always refreshing to hear a CEO, or ex-CEO, offer a pragmatic take on their career… Continue reading

    How To Behave In A Legacy Organisation
  • The Inauthentic Authenticity of LinkedIn

    Amidst all the talk about about the chaos/decline of the network formerly known as Twitter, hardly anyone is talking about what is happening on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the world’s top professional social platform, with over 930 million members from 200… Continue reading

    The Inauthentic Authenticity of LinkedIn
  • The Abilene Paradox And The Dangers of Assuming People Agree With You

    The Abilene Paradox is a situation in which a group makes a decision that is contrary to the desires of the group’s members, because each member assumes the others approve of it. It’s titled after an example used by Jerry… Continue reading

    The Abilene Paradox And The Dangers of Assuming People Agree With You
  • Autonomy Only Happens By Design

    Most of us accept that bureaucracy squashes initiative, risk-taking, and creativity, but it doesn’t just stop there. Continue reading

    Autonomy Only Happens By Design
  • Agile Isn’t Everything and Everything Isn’t Agile

    A friend of mine was recently invited on a two-day training course to teach/indoctrinate them in the ways of agile. It was accompanied by a 500-slide PowerPoint, no doubt explaining terms like ‘scrum of scrums’, ‘time boxing’, ‘epics’, ‘niko niko… Continue reading

    Agile Isn’t Everything and Everything Isn’t Agile
  • Disruption-Proof: How Entire Sectors Avoid Transformation

    There used to be a question posed when Amazon first began eating into entire sectors – such as cloud computing, groceries, streaming video, and healthcare. Where won’t Amazon go? Is any sector Amazon-proof? Today’s question is where won’t disruption go?… Continue reading

    Disruption-Proof: How Entire Sectors Avoid Transformation
  • Community Is The Only Unit of Sustainable Change

    The basic unit of sustained innovation is not a creative individual, nor even a team, but a creative community with a cause.  Charles Leadbetter I’m just off the back of a first round of workshops, or rather conversations, about the… Continue reading

    Community Is The Only Unit of Sustainable Change
  • How Do You Change A System That Doesn’t Want To Change?

    There were two recurring P words throughout the New Local ‘Stronger Things’ event in London’s Guildhall. Permission: give it. Power: share it. The Guildhall was built in the 15th century to demonstrate the continuing power of the merchants of the… Continue reading

    How Do You Change A System That Doesn’t Want To Change?
  • Technology Is Not Innovation.

    For all the talk of technology, let’s remember we are human businesses and we exist to help other humans do better in life. It’s our only real purpose. So let’s think how we can use technology to leverage the huge… Continue reading

    Technology Is Not Innovation.