There’s no doubt that the pandemic taught as a lot about how we can organise ourselves differently at speed to continue to deliver for our stakeholders – whoever they may be. The pace at which organisations, especially the likes of essential services, retail, distribution and warehousing, adapted to the circumstances was a real lesson in agility. And of course, more widely across business and society changes were made to accommodate the restrictions and risks that were at large. But just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should and one of the overhangs from the pandemic are a whol ..read more

I’ve always taken issue with the idea of “bringing your whole self to work”. It’s a pretty meaningless statement that is normally espoused by the kind of sugar addicted character who will also bounce into a room and start a sentence with, “I know this is probably TMO, but..” The first reason I dislike it is the base logic, or more the lack of it. There are many things that people do in their lives that would be highly inappropriate to share with most other people, never mind in the workplace. The second reason I dislike it is that it takes the kind of “radical candour” approach that many feel ..read more

I remember the advice careers advice my father gave to me many years ago, “make sure you perform well enough so you don’t stand out, but not so well you get given additional work for no reward”. Whilst it might have been a little tongue in cheek, the underlying message of, “stay in the pack” was clear. It wasn’t advice that I took to heart, he worked in an entirely different occupation in an entirely different time period, the sentiment behind it stuck in my mind – the fear of standing out. Whilst not necessarily articulated in the same way, that fear runs through much of society and through o ..read more

My mum used to have a t-shirt that read, “it’s probably more complicated than that”. As a guiding mantra when entering into a debate on anything in life we could all do worse than adopt this, yet at the same time there is an alluring pressure to make things simple. Above my desk, as I write this, I have a schematic of the cognitive bias codex as a reminder to myself of the complexity of the human brain. Of course it doesn’t stop me from falling into the traps, it just reminds me that I probably have. We know that in times of stress and pressure we can rely more on our unconscious brain and tha ..read more

Keen observers will know that I have a particular dislike for the made up, “Great Resignation”. I’d go as far to say that it put up a good challenge to “The War for Talent”, “The New Normal” and anything involving the word, “Disruption” to be the most vacuous phrase that has ever dribbled out of the side of a mouth. And whilst the context is different, the commonality between all of these soundbites is the lack of understanding and analysis that goes with their use. They’re just repeated mindlessly by the mindless. There is no doubt that the labour market has been through a period of change. I ..read more

I turn 50 later this year. I know, I find it hard to believe too. It is an overused joke of mine that the pandemic stole my 40’s, back in 2020 I felt more mid 40’s still with loads of road ahead of me, by the end of restrictions the big 50 was really bearing down upon me and that road had become a narrow lane. But this isn’t a post about the existential crisis of age, about wisdom, about loss or even about change. It is a post about the acceptance of reality. The fact is I was born in 1973 and every 365 days based on our customs of time, I become a year older. The fact is that in 2020 a diseas ..read more

I’m sure like me you have your rituals, whether that’s the daily coffee always bought from the same coffee shop, the time that you eat your lunch or the run that you take after work. The small and seemingly important fabric of our lives that we execute without much conscious thought or application. And as we go about our days we notice the pattern in others, the woman always stood on the same corner waiting for a lift as we drive to work, the car that always parks in the same spot in the carpark, the person who gets on the train in the same carriage every day, the person who sits in the same s ..read more

Social media isn’t what it once could have been. Perhaps it was always destined to be this way – factious, opinionated, angry and blaming. Perhaps it is just places a magnifying glass on the society that we are creating, that’s playing out in front of our very eyes. Perhaps it is a bellwether of something more deep rooted that’s going on around us every minute of every day. James Marriot wrote a brilliant piece in The Times a few weeks about the importance, in some respects, of social conformity in ensuring thoughtfulness and meaningful discourse. The idea that simply through the presence of o ..read more

A few years ago now (the ‘rona years makes time a little confused) I read a fabulous book called The Disruption Dilemma by Joshua Gans. I’m not a huge fan of the over use of the word disruption and Gans does a great job of separating out the wheat from the chaff in this respect and focussing on two key types of disruption, demand side and supply side. And most memorably for me was the proper telling of the Blockbuster story, away from the simplistic neanderthal versus agile competitor false narrative. Blockbuster had trialled a more “on demand” service, but their customers didn’t like it. One ..read more

One of the reasons I’ve always hated the comparison between business and sport is that whilst one has a very clear beginning and end, whether that is the geographical distance of a race, the length of a season, or the number of points that need to be achieved – the other is entirely open ended. There is no finish line, no final whistle, no countdown clock – we go and we go again. Which is why I’m starting to feel slightly uneasy about the last twelve months of self congratulatory indulgence about how well organisations have navigated the pandemic. Because, I fear what is to come is going to be ..read more