Short and long teeth in cross-functional teams

by | Oct 3, 2023

Organisations need more and better cross-functional teams with varied experiences and skillsets to tackle the complex problems they face today. But whilst they can be a powerful resource when they are working well, some research suggests that 75% of cross-functional...

Avoiding the Upskilling Whack-a-Mole

by | Sep 19, 2023

Employees trying to up-skill face a real dilemma, one which becomes even more acute when their organisation is undergoing transformation: on one hand, they are caught in the prevailing cult of bare minimum learning, and on the other, the organisation’s ever-changing...

Getting lost in the organisational cave

by | Jul 25, 2023

Organisations generate rules and guidelines to govern behaviour and to avoid problematic outcomes, but over time these rules can chip away at the sense of ownership, autonomy and accountability that we want to see in a modern workplace. Getting the balance right is...

Cracking the Code: Systems, Not Processes in Operations

by | Jun 27, 2023

A couple of years ago, in a fast-growing convenience retail company, I took on a new responsibility – operations. As a newly-appointed Operations Director, I was overwhelmed with the details of how individual processes work, urgent high-risk escalations, and...

Continuous Improvement: The big juggle

by | Jun 13, 2023

A common fallacy in team working is the assumption that productivity and continuous improvement are strongly correlated, meaning that when one improves so does the other. In fact, we need to juggle both at the same time, and that means paying attention to the subtle...