Paul Taylor

  • How To Kill Innovation In 10 Easy Steps

    Many of our organisations, without realising it, act as inhibitors of innovation. Rules and protocols are put in place — often for very good reasons — that preserve the status quo. Over time, organisations develop a set of social norms… Continue reading

    How To Kill Innovation In 10 Easy Steps
  • The Case Against Digital Transformation

    Something that’s being sold to you as more convenient may well be a lost social interaction that you’ll never get back – Ben Holliday, Convenience Isn’t Digital Last week a friend of ours told me a story about trying to get some… Continue reading

    The Case Against Digital Transformation
  • How The 9-5 Saps Our Creativity and Harms Our Productivity

    From ten to eleven, have breakfast for seven; From eleven to noon, think you’ve come too soon; From twelve to one, think what’s to be done; From one to two, find nothing to do; From two to three, think it… Continue reading

    How The 9-5 Saps Our Creativity and Harms Our Productivity
  • How To Design For Better Outcomes

    Our job is to the mind the gap between the bureaucracy of our systems and the opportunities in our communities – Cormac Russell Sometimes it’s preferable to pull the plug on a service before you see it collapse in front of… Continue reading

    How To Design For Better Outcomes
  • An A-Z of Modern Jargon

    Yesterday a colleague who had been faced with a lot of long documents filled with confusing language came out with a great phrase: I didn’t know where to start. So, I didn’t There’s some science to this. Faced with choice… Continue reading

    An A-Z of Modern Jargon
  • The Problem With Finding Answers

    Don’t Look for a Great Idea. Look for a Good Problem – Greg Satell Yesterday I spent five and half hours in a room with my colleagues Carole and Simon trying to get to the root of a problem. Three… Continue reading

    The Problem With Finding Answers
  • Why Transformation Fails – And How To Avoid It

    The concept that 70% of change and transformation programmes fail emerged in the mid 1990’s. There’s actually little evidence that this is true. The 70% figure seems to have emerged because of a lack of clarity about what success looks… Continue reading

    Why Transformation Fails – And How To Avoid It
  • How Not To Solve The Health, Housing and Care Crisis

    Crisis (noun) ‘a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger’. ‘a time when a difficult or important decision must be made.’ The housing crisis can no longer be ignored. Neither it appears can the crisis in health. And nor can the… Continue reading

    How Not To Solve The Health, Housing and Care Crisis
  • Don’t Let Busyness Kill Your Creativity

    Last week I was getting a drink when a colleague asked me “So, you busy as usual?” I took a second to avoid my kneejerk affirmative response and went for it: “No – we’ve decided to slow down. Give ourselves… Continue reading

    Don’t Let Busyness Kill Your Creativity
  • We Need To Promote Outcomes At Work Not Presenteeism

    “Presenteeism is the biggest threat to UK workplace productivity. Workers coming in and doing nothing is more dangerous than absenteeism” – Professor Cary Cooper A full car park and people appearing busy at their desks is zero evidence that any… Continue reading

    We Need To Promote Outcomes At Work Not Presenteeism
  • How To Find And Nurture Digital Readiness

    When someone in public service says, ‘I don’t use social media. No one wants to know what I had for breakfast!’ I hear, ‘I don’t have the vaguest interest in understanding how an increasing number of citizens get information or… Continue reading

    How To Find And Nurture Digital Readiness
  • We Need To Stop Talking About Change Or Get Comfortable With Failure

    Every year businesses will embark on a series of reports , meetings, visioning sessions , training events and communication strategies. In almost every case the goal will be the same: to make fundamental changes to how business is conducted in… Continue reading

    We Need To Stop Talking About Change Or Get Comfortable With Failure
  • How To Find And Kill Zombie Projects

    According to Clayton Christensen , of the 30,000 new consumer products that are launched each year – 95% fail. Compare this with the public, voluntary and non-profit sectors – where hardly anything fails. The social sector must either be fantastic at launching… Continue reading

    How To Find And Kill Zombie Projects
  • Avoiding The Iceberg of Organisational Change

    Formal reorganisation is an elaborate illusion. Reorganisation has to be part of an organisation, not something done to it – Harold Jarche The concept of the ‘iceberg of ignorance’ – that most problems in organisations are invisible to leaders, and… Continue reading

    Avoiding The Iceberg of Organisational Change
  • Stop Talking, Start Experimenting

    Thinking different isn’t enough, you have to act different – Jorge Barba I took a call this week from a person working for another organisation, we’ll call her Bill. Despite having a hugely supportive executive team the problems Bill faces… Continue reading

    Stop Talking, Start Experimenting
  • Why Do We Still Need Managers?

    “Management is not only dysfunctional, Management is also destructive” – Companies Without Managers Last week we held the first of the Bromford  #inspiremelab sessions – where colleagues curated and then discussed provocations around the future of how we work. We covered… Continue reading

    Why Do We Still Need Managers?
  • What Does Your Social Media Say About Your Organisation?

    Please for the love of God can we stop with the Digital by Default, the Digital by Design – It’s just life! – Amy Nettleton There’s a danger we can overthink digital. Whilst organisations grapple with the ‘cultural challenges’ of… Continue reading

    What Does Your Social Media Say About Your Organisation?
  • Redefining Trust In A Digital Age

    Trust is not coming back. Scepticism reigns, as it should. – Gerry McGovern Since the industrial revolution,  a trusting relationship between individuals and organisations has been the norm. This has shaped the way we communicate – both internally and externally.… Continue reading

    Redefining Trust In A Digital Age
  • Complex Problems Require Rapid Experiments

    “Multiple iterations almost always beat a single-minded commitment to building your first idea” – Peter Skillman Most of you will have taken part in the Marshmallow Challenge or a variant of it. It’s the team exercise where you get a… Continue reading

    Complex Problems Require Rapid Experiments
  • The Rules of Digital Transformation

    In five years time we’ll look back and realise we had it wrong about digital. Digital transformation was never about digital, and rarely about transformation. It’s actually about the processes by which you change your business model or approach. Some of… Continue reading

    The Rules of Digital Transformation