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Net Zero and The Law of Horse Manure
Catastrophic predictions that spell dark days for humanity are nothing new. The Times predicted in 1894 that in 50 years time, every street in London would be buried under nine feet of horse manure. It was the crisis of all crises. There was, to be fair, some evidence for this. As urban populations rapidly increased… Read more
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The Gravitational Pull Of Business As Usual
The interior secrets of black holes are guarded by a one-way light-trapping boundary called the event horizon. This horizon is the point, according to NASA, that the gravitational influence of the black hole becomes so intense that not even light is fast enough to escape it. A very different horizon exists in many organisations, except… Read more
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Digital Transformation is Failing. Why?
“A key reason why true mobile working isn’t being implemented is because of management culture. The case for mobile working has been proven; it is the people who are the biggest barriers.”- 2017 Deloitte Human Capital Trends report The way we work , it seems, is no longer working. What we’ve long suspected – that… Read more
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How Not To Involve Customers
In 1985 one of the biggest brands in the world nearly destroyed itself – by listening to what customers said. Coca-Cola developed a product dubbed “New Coke” that was slightly sweeter than the original. Almost 200,000 blind taste tests were conducted and most participants said that they favoured New Coke over both the original formula… Read more
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Know Your Customers, Just Never Ask Them What They Want
We do not really know what our potential users will really respond to, what they will understand or what they’ll hate until we really see them using it –Jonathan Courtney If you are working on any new service change or product there’s one question I guarantee will be asked of you at some point: “What… Read more
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How Automation Helps Us Solve The Problems That Matter
“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” – Elbert Hubbard Automation gets a bad rap. The original draft of our design principles stated “Automate everything that can be automated”. People flinched – it was seen as too harsh. Mention automation and people make a mental… Read more
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Why We Solve The Wrong Problems
Everywhere I look I see organisations and people investing heavily in new initiatives, transformation, and change programmes. And in almost every case the goals will never be met. One of the most crucial causes of the failure? The right questions were never asked at the outset. We default to ideas and plans. Too many of which… Read more
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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… Read more
Paul Taylor 