November 5, 2021
The perfect employee
The perfect employee doesn’t need to be told what to do. They know what has to be done. They know … Read More “The perfect employee”
Category: Discipline makes Daring possible
November 4, 2021
Gen Z
Gen Z are demanding what every generation before them has always wanted – #autonomy, #purpose #agency #mastery #community.
Good for them!
Give it to them. And watch your business scale.
November 3, 2021
Measuring what really matters
Here’s a simple question we can ask ourselves, our businesses and our societies, every day:
“How can I/we reduce the concentration of carbon in our atmosphere today?”
Because as Sir David Attenborough points out, that’s the measure that matters to us all right now.
November 2, 2021
Not all who wander are lost
Today’s ‘The Life Scientific’ focused on Sharon Peacock, a consultant in microbiology and Professor of Public Health and Microbiology at the University of Cambridge; a pioneer and advocate for the application of pathogen genome sequencing in the National Health Service to tackle antibiotic resistance, and most recently, founding director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK consortium. A network of 600 scientists constantly tracking the appearance and spread of new COVID-19 variants.
Impressive eh?
But she almost didn’t make it.
Sharon left school at 16, worked in a corner shop, then as a dental nurse (3 doors down), before deciding to train as a nurse. She had trouble getting in, because she didn’t have the science qualifications needed, and not long into her training, decided that what she really wanted to be was a doctor. She finished her nursing training, taking evening classes to get her ‘O’ levels in maths physics and chemistry. Next, she combined a job in end-of-life care with more studying – this time for the science ‘A’ levels. Finally she could apply to medical schools.
Every one of them all rejected her application without an interview. The same thing happened over the next application cycle.
Fortunately, Sharon didn’t give up. She called one of the universities and asked them to at least see her. Within a month she was at medical school. And the rest is, as they say, history. An interest in care, sparked by being a lowly dental nurse, has ended up as care on a global scale.
We almost wasted this talent, as I’m sure we waste other talents, simply because we mistake wandering for being lost. Sharon’s route to professorship was somewhat circuitous, but it wasn’t accidental, and certainly not a sleepwalk. Her intention was very clear – although possibly hard to spot on standardised application forms.
Which means we have to think carefully about how we design our recruitment processes, including questions that help us to tell the difference between wandering, drift, and sleepwalking.
Because wanderers (and drifters) bring much more to the table than mere qualifications.
November 1, 2021
New tunes
“Research carried out by Oxford Economics found that it takes recently hired professional workers 28 weeks to reach optimum productivity – which has an attached cost of £25,200 per employee.”
Why is that?
Because even if your new hire has worked in your industry for years, they haven’t worked in your business before. They don’t know what you know, don’t believe what you believe, and don’t do things the way you do them.
You may have started out as a one-man-band, doing covers. But by now you play your own music, nobody else’s. That’s why your best clients love you. That means that no matter how experienced, every new person that joins your team has to learn new tunes.
Maybe it’s time you got that music out of your head? So others can learn to play it more easily and more quickly. Bringing their own personality and flair to the performance right from the start.
And you can spend less time telling them where to put their fingers.
October 29, 2021
Leadership?
At this morning’s Like-Hearted Leaders gathering we had an interesting discussion around what leadership is or could be.
It was an interesting, intricate, circular discussion.
But in the end, I think what leadership could be might be best summed up in the LHL values:
- Real conversations, even if they are difficult.
- Courage to be vulnerable.
- Growth & Learning comes through thoughtful feedback.
- Freedom of expression, where everyone is worthy of contributing.
- Amplify others.
- Trust grows in balanced relationships of give and take.
It’s an interesting question though.
What does leadership mean to you?
What does it mean to whoever you lead?
October 28, 2021
Happy Birthday!
3 years ago today, I started writing this blog.
From my perspective, it’s been one of the best things I’ve done, and of course I plan to continue.
How has it been for you?
October 27, 2021
Rotations
Circles are an interesting form of organisation. Like King Arthur’s famous Round Table, nobody is ‘above’ or ‘below’ anyone else. All are on a level.
A circle can be the basis of useful mechanisms for sharing work fairly, without the need for discussion, consensus building or command.
For instance, if you all work in an office, someone has to open up each day. Often it’s one person’s job. What happens when they don’t turn up?
You could decide to give everyone a key, and it’s simply the first to arrive that opens up. But if you are the habitually early one, you might start to resent being the only one who has to do this in practice.
Or you could create an ‘opening up ‘ circle (which could include everyone) and do it by rotation. You might even use a single set of special keys to make the mechanism visible, perhaps even more like a game.
There are probably more jobs that could be organised in this way. You could rotate delivery drivers through different routes or rounds, to give them a change and to introduce customers to more of your team. You could rotate people through networking events in the same way. You could even rotate people through Roles to expand their experience and get clients used to the idea that anyone in your business can help them equally well.
The beauty of a circle is that you can start anywhere, and go clockwise or anti-clockwise. You can choose whatever frequency you like for the rotation. It can even accommodate absences – you just jump the gap if today’s person is missing. Best of all, there’s no room for argument. Everyone takes their turn, then forgets about the job until it comes round again.
No need to write up complex rotas, just draw up your circles, put them somewhere visible, and set them going.
How powerful a signal it would be if everyone, including the boss, took their spot?
October 26, 2021
Cancel Culture
The factory pictured here isn’t an old relic. A few months ago it was home to a growing light industrial business, manufacturing variations of the thing they invented back in the ’60s. They were evicted to make way for a residential investment opportunity.
The same is happening all around this part of the Old Kent Road. Not just to factories, but to car-maintenance workshops, independent logistics firms and pentecostal churches. Around a 1,000 jobs in total, spread across a 100 small independent firms – who want to grow, if only they could find the space.
We’re used to thinking of the North and Midlands as being our centres of manufacturing, but London has always had more of it, just lighter, and spread over a larger area.
But residential tower blocks yield higher returns. So, slowly, all evidence that real businesses making real things for real people actually existed here will be gone.
It is possible to mix light industrial and residential, or office and residential, to build places for people to live and work. That’s happening in Zurich – the ultimate money-metropolis.
But clearly that involves acknowledging a manufacturing culture.
It’s easier to erase it. No matter what the long-term cost.
October 25, 2021
Our greatest tool
Following nicely on from the last post, I recommend this series of posts from my friend Mary Jane Copps – The Phone Lady.
You’re probably familiar with the idea that as humans we are wired to look for stories, which means that telling them is a great form of marketing.
What Mary Jane makes us realise is that before you can tell your own story effectively, you have to first find the story of the person you are talking to. Not the story of the avatar you’ve created to ‘represent’ them, but the actual story of the actual person you are speaking to right now.
Why?
Because “It’s within their story that your value takes root.“
That means that whatever your process for communicating one-to-one with prospects or clients is, it must have room for curiosity, and enough flex to accommodate the learning you gain by exercising that curiosity.