Tag: bromford
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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 […]
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Why We Try To Solve Problems By Adding Complexity
“Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.” Andy Benoit When companies want to change they almost always add something to the mix. A new team, a new senior leader, a new process, a new system. We’re obsessed with adding new elements as a way of attempting […]
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The Anatomy of a Great Idea
Ideas are not invented equally. I’d suggest that anyone who repeats the adage that ‘no idea is a bad idea’ has never attended a management away day. So what makes a great idea?
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What Effect Does Environment Have On Our Ability To Think Creatively?
When you think of the “space to innovate” what immediately springs to mind? Is it the physical space , the mental space, the calendar space? All three? I’ve been thinking a lot about spaces and environments this week: specifically what are the best creative spaces to boost collaboration? Few companies measure whether the design of […]
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How To Kill Ideas (Part 53)
Many organisations act as inhibitors of innovation. Rules and protocols are put in place, often for very good reasons, that preserve the status quo. Over time, organisations develop a set of social norms – ‘the way we do things around here’ – that can quell any creativity or dissent. Organisations can quickly develop an autonomic immune response […]
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How To Resist Corporate Hoarding
Many companies are still using software built or purchased from a time when Blockbuster were fining us for late returned videos. Most of the companies we admire for their innovation , your Amazons, your Netflixes or your Apples have no such legacy ways of working holding them back. They either cleared them out years ago […]
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The Complex Problem With Big Change Programmes
Change-washing (noun): the process of introducing reforms that purport to bring about change but fail to result in any substantive shifts in systems, services or culture. — Thea Snow and Abe Greenspoon One of the unfortunate side-effects of writing a post that becomes popular such as People Aren’t Sick Of Change. They’re Just Sick Of […]
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The Problem With Seeing People As Vulnerable
Never mistake your Twitter feed for your country — Nick Cohen (@NickCohen4) December 12, 2019 Now, more than ever, it’s easier to exist within a bubble. We spend a lot more time communicating through screens than talking face to face. Our digital social networks are powered by algorithms designed to feed us information confirming what […]
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Redesigning Organisations For Positive Deviance
What if the traditional way that we think change happens is all wrong? What if our focus on the spread and scale of innovative business solutions isn’t the answer – but is part of the fundamental problem? In 1990, an American couple named Jerry and Monique Sternin were sent by Save the Children to fight […]
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The Complex Task of Simplicity
If you want to make things truly simple to use by your customers, you will nearly always have to make your organization take on more complexity – Gerry McGovern Yesterday, I delivered a talk at a conference that was aimed at getting organisations ‘back to basics’. The problem, I proposed, was that we live in a […]
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How Technology Can Increase Collaboration And Build Trust
This post is an shortened version of a plenary talk delivered in Cardiff for the Wales Audit Office Depending on your age it’s likely that the two things you were not taught in school were: a) how to collaborate effectively and b) how to use technology to connect and share with others And yet these […]
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How To Kill Doomed Projects
The challenge for managers in the “can-do” culture of business is to distinguish between belief as a key driver of success—and belief as something that can blind managers to a project’s ultimate failure – Isabelle Royer It’s always easier to start something new than it is to stop doing something. Many of our organisations are […]
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How To Avoid Corporate Initiativitis
We’ve never felt so busy at work, and never been less engaged. 90% of people say they expect to find a substantial degree of joy at work, yet only 37% report that they do. Many of our organisations remain afflicted by: Initiative-itis: The condition of mistaking busyness for productivity Vanity Projects: Things that only got […]
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How To Kill Ideas
We were asked a really good question last week with the visit to Bromford of the Disruptive Innovators Network. How long should you spend on an idea? In the early days of Bromford Lab we had a 12 WEEKS MAX rule. If we couldn’t get an idea up and running within that time – it should […]
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What We Can Learn From The Oldest Companies in The World
Shigemitsu Kongo, a Japanese Buddhist temple builder, formed his construction company Kongo Gumi in in 578 AD. His company built relationships with their customers that lasted for 1,400 years, surviving through many wars and natural disasters, just like their temples. It wasn’t technology that nearly killed the company, but cashflow. The oldest company in the world […]
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Lessons Learned From Five Years of Failure
Sometimes the execution of the idea doesn’t need to be the best to succeed. In 1989 a video game designer called Gunpei Yokoi changed the world with the launch of the original Nintendo Game Boy. It took gaming out of the hands of geeks and paved the way for the industry to become the most […]
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Why We Don’t Collaborate
Everyone says they love collaboration. Our open offices are designed to encourage collaboration. We recruit for people who are collaborative in nature. The digital tools we use are aimed at fostering greater collaboration. We promote the benefits of collaboration , or even co-creation, with our customers and service users. Collaboration has replaced innovation as the […]
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How Good Company Culture Can Go Bad
Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. One of the best hours I spent this week was with our Governance, Risk and Assurance Team. There – I said it. Joking aside, the relationship between governance and innovation is an important one. As I wrote in my last post – for an organisation to support innovation […]
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Creating The Right Culture For Innovation and Change
I’m not sure I buy into the concept of organisations having a culture of innovation. After all, innovation is a process consisting of four things: Having an idea that solves a problem Doing something with that idea Proving that it delivers new value for people Translating it into reality and making it part of the […]
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The Fruitless Quest For Inbox Zero: Eight Tips To Protect Your Time
You can seek to impose order on your inbox all you like – but eventually you’ll need to confront the fact that the deluge of messages, and the urge you feel to get them all dealt with, aren’t really about technology. They’re manifestations of larger, more personal dilemmas – Oliver Burkeman At the back-end of […]
Paul Taylor 