Month: June 2020
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Incentivising 10X
Sometimes in my workshops with clients I run exercises around how a team can create possible futures as opposed to just plausible and probable ones. This is akin to what Google have termed '10X' thinking. The idea of creating disproportionate rather than incremental gain. Ideas that force you to break things open, work from first…
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Applying Current Reality Trees
Every so often when working with a client on a project there will be a tricky problem that we need to understand better and one of the best tools that I've found to do this is to visualise the challenge using a current reality tree, which is one of the thinking processes in the Theory…
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The Danger of Blindly Following Machines
This episode of Tim Harford's podcast series Cautionary Tales has some brilliant stories about the dangers of blindly following technology. Tim talks about the phenomenon of what rangers in Death Valley California have termed death by GPS – genuine examples of where people have ended up in perilous situations by uncritically following the step-by-step turns…
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The Problem With Behavioural Economics
Last Friday in between calls I dipped in and out of the brilliant Nudgestock (you can see all the talks over on the Ogilvy Consulting YouTube channel). A favourite talk that I caught from the day came from Bri Williams early on. One of the biggest challenges with behavioural economics (for me at least) is…
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Learning Opportunities
There were several well articulated points in this post by Lean specialist John Shook about why it's so important for leaders not to try and solve all the problems on behalf of their teams. An outdated style of leadership believes that all the answers exist at the top of the organisation and flow down. Yet…
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Wardley’s Universal Doctrine
I'm a fan of Simon Wardley's thinking – he did an excellent Google Firestarters talk a few years ago, and I drew on some of his work in my first and second book. His approaches to understanding situational context and strategy with Wardley Mapping are exceptional. The doctrine have been described as value-based ideas and…
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Post of the Month – May 2020 – The Winner
Some lively voting in this month's vote and a strong showing for Gem Higgins' post but in the end it was Mel Exon's excellent writing about lockdown that won through. So well done to Mel who joins the Post of the Month hall of fame. My thanks to everyone that nominated and voted.
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Post of the Month – May 2020 – The Vote
Thanks for the nominations. So our vote this month is between: Chaz’s 100 Things Planners Should Know by Chaz Wigley Fever Dream by Mel Exon Banana Yazoo saved my life by Kerry Roper Five steps that brands can take to genuinely show that black lives matter by Vivienne Dovi Lay off the Covid Clones by Victoria Milne Facing Things…
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Post of the Month – May 2020 – Nominations
It's time again to recognise great thinking and writing and open up nominations for Post of the Month. As usual I have a short starting list below but please do add to these with nominations of posts that you've read over the past month and think are particularly good. You can nominate by sending me…
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My Father and Other Turning Points
My father died suddenly and somewhat prematurely at the age of 65 in 1998. I had just turned 30 at the time and it hit me with some force. I remember promising myself that I would hold it together at his funeral and then crying almost uncontrollably when I read out my remembrance of him.…