Category: change
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Breaking out of optimisation
I wrote a post last month on understanding technological-driven change and innovation through the lens of optimisation and transformation. Both can deliver significant benefits but they are fundamentally different approaches. Optimisation involves first order change. It relates to adaptations within the current system or structure that are designed to improve. It tends back to homeostasis…
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On Mastery
One of the most thought-provoking things that I read over the past week was John Durrant’s notes on the book Mastery, by George Leonard (thanks to Johnnie Moore for the link). Worth reading the whole thing of course but they were so good that I wanted to capture some of the more interesting take outs…
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Prioritising the application of AI
One of the key challenges with the application of AI is that it is such a broad technology with such wide potential applications in so many areas how do you prioritise where to place the effort and resource? I’ve had a go before now at categorising potential application of AI through the lens of seven…
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Navigating change – Optimisation vs Transformation
When leaders are looking at how to get the most out of new technologies they will inevitably be faced with a plethora of options, questions, and prioritisation decisions. Making sense of how to navigate that (and how to navigate the dilemma zone in particular) can be a huge challenge. One of my favourite ways of…
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Navigating change – Technology S-curves
As Charlie Ebdy has adeptly pointed out chasing shiny new trends too early can easily result in wasted resources and time. The timing and speed with which new technologies find genuine use cases, and genuine scale and maturity can be notoriously difficult to predict (and some never take off at all). So making smart decisions…
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Subtraction as a strategy
In a culture of accumulation, the value of taking things away is often overlooked. As I listened to this short Atlantic podcast featuring Professor Leidy KlotzI from University of Virginia (author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less) I was reminded of a couple of things about the challenge of subtraction. Firstly, when it comes…
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Strategy on a page
I once worked with a client to create a one page summary of their transformation strategy. We had a name for the strategy, a defined mission and a vision, some associated values, a customer promise, key goals, time gates and measures. The risk with this approach of-course is that it becomes overly reductive and misses…
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Building 20, and ‘Productively Informal’ Innovation
When Steve Jobs designed Pixar’s new headquarters (he was Chairman of Pixar at the time) he deliberately designed it in a way that would encourage employee mingling, unplanned encounters and cross-team collaboration. The building has a huge central atrium which traffics staff between different areas, houses communal facilities such as the cafe, cinema, toilets and…
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The Learning Organisation
In all my work whether it’s about organisational agility, leadership, marketing or transformation, I am increasingly of the opinion that the critical capability of the modern organisation is the ability to learn fast. And I don’t mean training or new skills (though this too is not unimportant). I mean to learn about the optimal way…
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Perception vs Perspective
What’s the difference between perception and perspective? Why does this matter? It may be a subtle distinction but understanding this difference can really help us to improve or change something. Perception is how we translate the world around us (often through sensory inputs). It is how make sense of something, and what enables us to…