Paul Taylor

Latest Writing

  • Net Zero and The Law of Horse Manure

    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

  • The Gravitational Pull Of Business As Usual

    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

  • Young People are not the problem. But Employers often are.

    The other day I was sitting with my colleague , James Walsh , and a Recruitment Consultant – talking about the difficulties of employing young people.  And how employers , and outdated recruitment practices,  are all too often part of the problem. Unintelligible jobs descriptions. Never giving candidates any feedback. Lack of mentoring. The insistence on applying 20th… Read more

  • Is expecting a contribution to community such a bad thing?

    Yesterday ,on the  Guardian Housing Network , I asked whether it’s right that a Housing Association should expect a resident to make some sort of contribution to the community they move into. That we expect , as the default position , that everyone makes 5% extra effort to help their new community be the best it… Read more

  • Listen to customers. But don’t feel you have to do what they say…..

    “Do your customers agree with what you are proposing?” was one of the questions our Board asked me this week. My response went something like this: “I don’t know. We’ve listened to what they have told us. We’ve observed how they find things difficult to use. And then we’ve tried to create something they will… Read more

  • It’s all about people…….

    Yesterday I blogged on the dangers of just talking about what you do ,rather than what you actually change. Today I saw a lovely poem – on our internal social network. It’s written by one of our “Opportunities 4 Employment” customers. O4E is a 6-month paid placement aimed at offering people an apprenticeship and a… Read more

  • What do you do again?

    I work for a Housing Association. We build homes and we house people. And I dread people asking me what I do for a living. If you work in the same profession, or any other that doesn’t instantly ignite animated conversation , you will know The Tumbleweed Moment. That moment , those uncomfortable seconds of… Read more

  • It’s our Birthday – Top Learnings of Bromford Social Media Year One

    Last night – at our Board – the Chair opened the meeting with a question that I was utterly unprepared for. “Does anyone have an objection to people tweeting during this meeting? As long as they keep the comments relevant to the items being discussed?”. A couple of eyebrows were raised. But nobody objected. This… Read more