Recent Posts
One Final Mission for the Middle Management Brigades?
The so-called 'squishy middle' of management is often perceived as a barrier to transformation, but what if we engaged this layer as change agents? Good management gets a bad rap Ed Zitron’s critique of lazy back-to the-office articles in the media starts from the...
Uncovering under-the-surface triggers of low level change resistance
Cerys looks at two factors that are often overlooked when considering resistance to day-to-day change resistance and how we can start to untangle them. Much of the way that change and adoption are currently pursued inside organisations focuses on big changes bought...
Measuring the Economic Impact of Digital Change
In this issue, Livio digs into some of the ways that digital leaders can quantify the value of their transformation efforts and translate them into measurable financial benefits. 8 out of 10 IT execs prefer… Demonstrating the business value of IT is an established...
Old Wine in New Bottles
Sometimes change gets stuck between two worlds, and all we end up with is old structures with new branding. During a period of transition or paradigm shift, there is often an interim phase where we use new models to create a slightly better version of the old world...
Mind the Experience Gap
Some thoughts on making 'experience chasms' a bit shallower at the boundaries of traditional orgs. We’re seeing increased interest in customer and employee experience from most organisations, focused on increasing loyalty, revenues, engagement and empowerment. But...
Repeating the Mistake of Abstracting Social Connections in System Design
A few thoughts and links on scale, connection and mutualism in the design of social systems and organisations Scale, connection & mutualism in system design One of the repeated tragedies of ideologies and political systems is the pursuit of scale and control at...
Two Tips for Accelerating the Path Towards Smarter Digital Workplaces
We have some great ideas about the future of organisations and the digital workplace, but we will have a way to go on teaching people and teams the basics It is always great to zoom out and think about the future of work and the competing trends that will shape it:...
Between Two Worlds
Thoughts on institutional upgrades, hierarchies versus networks, and re-wilding as an organisational design priority. This week’s ‘Lunch with the FT’ featured the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and he had some interesting things to say ($) about how mature...
What Does it Mean to Move From Projects to Products?
Cerys shares some great reads on the shift from project to product that accompanies agile transformation, and some hints for non-technical teams overwhelmed by the journey. As organisations work through the transformation efforts needed for increased agility, some of...
Just Another Bad Day at the Office?
In this edition, Livio reflects on the cognitive deficit of leaders, the undying corporate addiction to meetings, and why these are terrible for getting important stuff done. Reading & learning are not just ‘nice to haves’ There are plenty of reasons why time to...
Our Global Moment of Liminality
Cerys explores ways in which leaders can help individuals and organisations embrace this unique moment of liminality as we transition to new realities. A year ago, HBR shared an article on our opportunity to use the “prolonged time of trial” represented by the...
Going Beyond Platitudes in Teaching High-Performance Team Development
This week, Lee reflects on different approaches to teaching leaders how to build, support and run high-performance 'business agile' teams... Building high performance teams Recently, I have been reflecting on how to ‘teach’ the right combination of skills, techniques...