Category: insight
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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…
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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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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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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…
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The cost of being dull
I loved the premise of Adam Morgan’s new podcast which is ostensibly about the cost of being boring, and in which Adam speaks to people whose job it is to make things more interesting. Adam is a planning legend, the founder of eatbigfish, and also a Google Firestarters guest (his Firestarters episode gives some wonderful…
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In defence of flywheels
My friend Mike Baxter had a good post on strategy flywheels (which I also talk about in my books on Agile Transformation and Agile Marketing), talking about two key concepts that underpin the whole idea of strategy flywheels: synergy and compounding. The ‘flywheel’ approach has been popularised by Amazon’s famous example which articulates how exceptional customer…
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Einstein, simplicity, and focusing on what really matters
‘Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.’ Albert Einstein A not insignificant part of Einstein’s brilliance came from his ability to focus on the essential principles and information that sat at the heart of complex scenarios. When considering difficult or complicated new ideas, instead of getting lost in the noise of…
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Groupthink, and management by leaving the room
I had no idea that the original research into the concept of ‘groupthink’ was inspired by what happened with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. Irving Janis, a Yale psychologist who studied group cohesion, became fascinated by how a group of highly intellectual politicians and government officials could make such a…
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Writing changes how we think about the world
I came across this lecture by Larry McEnerney from the University of Chicago Writing Program over on LinkedIn and I got so much from it. Larry makes some wonderful points about writing better. He talks about how we’re taught to follow the rules of writing rather than thinking about how our writing can be valuable…
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QWERTY, and lessons on user-centric design
Why are keyboards set out in the way that they are? Why aren’t the letters in alphabetical order? It turns out that the answer to these questions reveals a brilliant piece of user-centric thinking. After some early attempts at creating writing machines which were less than user friendly, inventors Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel…