Paul Taylor
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The Problem With Constantly Finding Problems
Our brain is constantly searching for problems to fix, even when that problem is reducing. When something becomes rare, we tend to see it in places more than ever. Anyone whose job involves reducing the prevalence of something should know… Continue reading
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The Regressive Power of Labelling People As Vulnerable
The paradox of employing the term of ‘vulnerability’ is that it makes people more vulnerable. Continue reading
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Innovating In An Age Of Uncertainty
Faced with uncertainty, those holding the purse strings will be tempted to stop the clock, peddle simplistic solutions and retreat to the past Continue reading
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Do You Really Know What Is Going On In Your Organisation?
We are at an inflection point: When it comes to workplace culture, there is a large gap between what leaders think is going on and what employees say is happening on the ground. The Hidden Value Of Culture Makers According… Continue reading
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How To Prepare For The Future of Housing
Community groups and individuals have delivered the most useful support networks in a physically distanced world. So now is the time for social landlords to revisit our purpose and reflect on the non value-adding activities that our organisations are involved… Continue reading
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In A Post-COVID World The Manager Is The Weak Link
In an increasingly remote and distributed world of work the employees who will have the biggest impact on the most people will rarely be the official leaders at the top. Continue reading
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Can We Really Trust Communities To Use Common Sense?
There have been a few positives amidst the devastation of the COVID pandemic. One is that it has reminded us of the power of social connection. People have begun supporting and caring for one another locally, with community led groups… Continue reading
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Indifference Towards Truth: Rebuilding Trust In a Post Lockdown World
If ever there was a time for critical thinking to make a comeback it’s right about now. This post was written in week eight of the UK lockdown , 55 days in which we’ve generated more speculation, more opinion and… Continue reading
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Death By Zoom: Have We Failed The Mass Home Working Experiment?
One of the few positives of the pandemic lockdown was the opportunity to reset the way in which we spend our working day. This was the chance to prove that remote work actually works. As someone whose job it is… Continue reading
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How Can We Move From Demand Led Service In The ‘New Normal’?
In the early hours of Good Friday I found myself undergoing emergency surgery after a complication during an earlier test. Even in the midst of some pretty intense pain I was unwilling to go to hospital – a mixture of… Continue reading
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Did A Virus Just Bring About The End Of The Office?
Remote work has accelerated 10 years in 10 days. The only thing that could pull people back to the office is the ego of the bad middle manager scared of losing control – Chris Herd The revolution in remote working… Continue reading
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Black Swans Can Inspire A New Era of Innovation
A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were… Continue reading
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The Way We Work Isn’t Working
The office, after management, is arguably the biggest inefficiency tax that organisations layer over themselves. They cost huge amounts to procure and maintain, they become an all too convenient base for meetings (another inefficiency tax), and they set a precedent… Continue reading
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What Coronavirus Tells Us About Risk
As I sit down to write this post I’ve just received an email from a weekly design blog I subscribe to. This edition is titled , alarmingly, ‘Pandemic Prep’. It begins “We are interrupting our regularly scheduled newsletter format and… Continue reading
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The Creative Value Of Open-Mindedness
Innovation is, essentially, about being endlessly curious. Curious, and a little bit paranoid that the way you do things isn’t the best way. Looking outside your organisation means gathering and understanding trends and weak signals that indicate emerging needs or… Continue reading
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How To Resist Corporate Hoarding
Many companies are still using software built or purchased from a time when Blockbuster were fining us for late returned videos. Most of the companies we admire for their innovation , your Amazons, your Netflixes or your Apples have no… Continue reading
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The Complex Problem With Big Change Programmes
Change-washing (noun): the process of introducing reforms that purport to bring about change but fail to result in any substantive shifts in systems, services or culture. — Thea Snow and Abe Greenspoon One of the unfortunate side-effects of writing a… Continue reading
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People Aren’t Sick Of Change. They’re Just Sick Of Change Programmes
I don’t buy into the idea that humans intrinsically hate change. I just think that by the time we’re in our 30s or 40s, lots of our experience of change – particularly in the workplace – has been more negative… Continue reading
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Enabling A New World Of Public Service Delivery
The UK now finds itself in its lowest-ever position in the Global Trust Index, just one place off the bottom, with only Russia below it – Ed Williams President and CEO, EMEA The results are in: Nobody trusts anyone anymore.… Continue reading
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Putting The Needs Of The User Before The System
Are some countries more innovative than others? Certainly many have tried to measure it, with the UK being outperformed by the likes of South Korea, Israel and Finland. As the CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla has said, the role of… Continue reading
Paul Taylor 