Paul Taylor

Leadership

  • Combatting The Cobra Effect With Bottom-Up Planning

    The Cobra Effect refers to a situation where an attempted solution to a problem actually makes the problem worse, as a result of unintended consequences. The term comes from a story during the British colonial rule of India. Concerned about… Continue reading

    Combatting The Cobra Effect With Bottom-Up Planning

  • Ending Our Obsession With Leadership

    Organisations need to completely rethink what it means to lead. It’s not about one person or even those residing at the top anymore. In today’s world, everyone has to adopt a leadership mindset. We have to think of ourselves as… Continue reading

    Ending Our Obsession With Leadership

  • 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

  • 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

  • Three Simple Ideas To Stop Change Failing

    “The essence of transformation isn’t incremental. Transformation means ‘radical change’. And few companies truly countenance that because it’s, well…too radical.” – Anne McCrossan Maybe we are being too ambitious. Perhaps the hype of business change is becoming all consuming, leading us… Continue reading

    Three Simple Ideas To Stop Change Failing

  • How To Become A Disobedient Organisation

    Imagine being given $250,000 for deliberately breaking the rules. No strings attached. That’s exactly what MIT are doing. Recognising that societies and institutions lean toward order and away from chaos they have launched an award and cash prize that will go… Continue reading

    How To Become A Disobedient Organisation

  • Why We Love Silo Working And What To Do About It

    In 1988 Phil. S. Ensor coined the term the functional silo system.  His contention was that narrow, specialised teams and jobs were easy to manage but imposed a very damaging learning disability on the organisation. We become focused on addressing organisational… Continue reading

    Why We Love Silo Working And What To Do About It

  • Five Questions for Prospective Digital Leaders

    Engaged leadership in the digital era means not chasing the latest apps and gadgets. Being an engaged leader in the digital era means knowing what your goals are and what tools to use to achieve them. It also means being… Continue reading

  • Lessons in Digital Leadership (from South Korea and Uganda)

    In case you missed it: the South Korean President , Park Geun-hye , issued a press release last week that sent reverberations around the globe. Her Klout score had gone up. Yes , the leader of one of the most… Continue reading

  • The Top 50 Power Players In Housing [Klout Edition]

    “The list doesn’t destroy culture; it creates it. Wherever you look in cultural history, you will find lists. In fact, there is a dizzying array. We like lists because we don’t want to die.” – Umberto Eco We all love… Continue reading

  • How Social Is Your CEO?

    Last week I ran a workshop for a number of Chief Executives. Whilst preparing my slidedeck (which is featured above) I spoke to a friend who is the Managing Director of a medium sized business. They have a very basic website.… Continue reading

  • How Your Social Media Policy Could Kill Your Culture

    I love Social Media. But really, it’s not that important. Not compared to some things. I’ve begun to see a few posts suggesting that companies need to take more control over their employees social media output. That word – ‘control’… Continue reading

  • 10 Myths From The Year We Went Social

    2012 – The Year We Went Social from Paul Taylor 2012 was the year in which the Housing Association sector went social. It’s very positive that so many of us have recognised the clear customer service and business benefits that… Continue reading

  • What’s in a name?

    How do you describe what you do? A few months ago an incredibly wise guy by the name of Bob Battye delivered a session to our Leadership team. He challenged us to re-write our Linkedin profiles describing what we were… Continue reading

  • Let’s make job descriptions inspirational….

    About 3 months ago I posted a blog/rant about why most Job Descriptions are complete rubbish. You know what I’m talking about. You read the one for the job you are doing now. Uninspiring: Although you said it was really… Continue reading

  • Break Your Own Rules

    I had a couple of great little customer service experiences recently that I’d like to share. On both occasions the employee admitted breaking the rules.  They had done something that I , the customer , thought was great service. But… Continue reading

  • Job Descriptions are rubbish…..My Top 5 new rules

    Did some work on some JD’s this week. I’ve been messing around them for some time – really struggling to articulate what I wanted. On Wednesday morning at 9:40am it struck me. Somebody , somewhere , about 50 or 60… Continue reading