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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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The Growing Immunity To ‘Change Management Bullshit’
In an era of competing and conflicting crises few things are certain. One thing we can count on though is our organisational ability to cope with change is going to be stretched to breaking point. This is concerning as our track record in delivering change in a more stable past has often been less than… Read more
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The Problem With Chasing Zeroes
Stowe Boyd posed a very good question in response to my recent piece on colliding crises. “What if crises are not of the sort that can be attacked and surmounted in a ‘short period of time’? The US housing crisis (and UK) is likely to require decades of focused effort to overcome. In the business context, how… Read more
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When Leaders Talk About Innovation, Always Be Sceptical
Declare yourself an innovation company and celebrate creativity, by all means. Then treat your employees to a little seminar in business history that emphasizes real-life time frames and the numbing necessity of trial and error, trial and error, trial and error. Sir Harold Evans In turbulent times beware the leader touting innovation myths. Myths like:… Read more
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When Everything Is A Crisis, Nothing Is
Who would win in a fight between the housing crisis in one corner and monkeypox in another? We live in a world that now has competing, intersecting, and sometimes conflicting crises. There are the old standards like the climate crisis, and the health crisis (now inflated to a national emergency by Rishi Sunak). The long… Read more
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Do Poor People Waste Money More Than Anyone Else?
Ever since I first started working in social housing, there’s been one trope that’s never really gone away. Poor people waste money. I was only a week into my first job when I was told that tenants kept spending money on satellite TV and we should ‘stop them’ for their own good. I’ve heard it… Read more
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The More We Reduce Conversation, The More We Increase Demand
A few weeks ago I visited a GP surgery with a family member to discuss a few issues that had been bothering them. They were told – with no uncertainty – that they shouldn’t attempt to discuss more than one issue per appointment as they were limited to 10 minutes. It was stated that there… Read more
Paul Taylor 