Paul Taylor

  • 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 members of a leadership community  — Patty McCord, former chief talent officer, Netflix Leadership worship…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 choose to interact.’  – Leah Lockhart What are we doing about boosting the Digital IQ…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 therefore unsolvable – was popularised by Sidney Yoshida in the late 1980’s. Nearly 30 years…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 to aim for things our leadership can’t possibly deliver. In my last couple of posts…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 to a person or group engaged in an extraordinary example of disobedience for the benefit of…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 fixes rather than exploring the underlying symptoms. Social chasms emerge resulting in people not seeing…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 brave and bold enough to step into the fray: listen to followers, share yourself with…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 digitally connected nations on the planet , saw fit to announce that her score had…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 a good list. You know – The top 500 movies of all time. The best…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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. No media links. When I asked why he doesn’t use social media , he answered simply: Paul…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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’ – has actually been used on more than one occasion. An unwelcome trend. It’s obvious…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 social and digital engagement can bring. This was year we went social. And these are…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 like as people – what we were actually about – rather than what we actually…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 really exciting at interview. Impenetrable: You had to search the web to understand some of…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 it was against the practices or policies as applied by their own managers. See what you…

    Paul Taylor

  • 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 years ago – decided what a JD should look and feel like. A lot of…

    Paul Taylor

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