Month: November 2023
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Questions for leaders
Over the last year I’ve been doing a lot of work with leaders in the NHS helping them to navigate change and understand to get the most out of technology in support of improvement. One of the resources that I found really useful in the research phase of the project were these questions for leaders…
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On writing to think
James Caig pointed to this wonderful post by Shane Parrish about how writing helps you think – a subject to which I have returned several times on this blog. Shane has a typically thoughtful take on the subject (the best I think I’ve read), going beyond what I’ve said before about how blogging is like…
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Why AI should be like a man and a bicycle
With all the hype around the application of AI at the moment I keep coming back to this simple analogy articulated by Steve Jobs when talking about his vision for man’s relationship with computers: “I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least…
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Missionaries, not Mercenaries
In the comments to my post on tipping points in social convention and change Mark Earls made a couple of great points. He built on the central theme of the post about how (rather than treating transformation as a marketing exercise) leaders should focus more on the ‘pioneers’ or ‘early adopters’ to forge a new…
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How workshop culture supports high performing teams
I facilitate a lot of workshops as part of what I do and so I was really looking forward to speaking with facilitator extraordinaire Alison Coward who works with a wide range of teams to help them work better and achieve their goals. Alison’s just written a new book (out this week) called ‘Workshop Culture:…
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Tipping points in social convention and change
This was an interesting study (HT @Emollick) looking at tipping points in social convention. Researchers conducted an experiment to test what proportion of people were needed to successfully challenge a norm that was held within the group. They looked at groups of people that had acheived a consensus about something (in this case the name…
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The Birthday Paradox
Answer this: How many people do you think need to be in the same room before two of them have the same birthday? We have a tendency to think of this question in a linear way and so most people approach this by thinking about the 365 days in a year. Meaning that having around…
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Context Switching
I wrote about the downsides of constant context switching (or the tendency we have to move from one task to another unrelated one) in my last book but it’s a subject that I keep thinking about when I talk to anyone about their working environment and the challenge of creating space or dedicating blocks to…