Here’s how Palestinian civilians are currently faring, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC): And here’s how they … Read More “Just in case you hadn’t noticed…”
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would be: Automate Drudgery. Not just physical drudgery, but mental drudgery too. Don’t use people to transfer data between systems. … Read More “The next thing on my manifesto”
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I don’t know about you, but that phrase “Standard Operating Procedures” makes me cringe. I completely get why they are needed in certain contexts – manufacturing, engineering, military, – anything where you’re dealing with things, or beings that you treat as things.
But as soon as human beings become part of the equation, there can be no such thing as standard – from either side of the operation.
If you’re a business that focuses on delivering a service to humans, by humans, consistency is what you want, not the uniformity of standardisation. However your service is being delivered, and whoever is delivering it, it should feel consistent with your Promise of Value. Since humans are involved, that inevitably means variation – of the kind that standardisation stifles. The kind that allows your people to over-deliver on your Promise and delight individual clients – even when things go wrong.
So, as you design and document the services that enable your business to deliver though others, remember to empower that ability to vary in your team.
Not only will it make for more delight and flexibility, it will be the means by which you discover new needs and desires in your client base.
In manufacturing and engineering, variation is deviation. But for humans and other living beings, and the businesses that serve them, it truly is the spice of life.
Discipline makes Daring possible.
Why should I write down my Customer Experience Score, when I have good people working for me, who can work things out for themselves?
Because making good people reinvent your wheel over and over again is a shocking waste of humanity.
Humanity that could be set free to invent even better wheels, and even more exciting uses for them.
Discipline makes Daring possible
Tomorrow, my friend and instigator of Connect the Carbon Dots, Anna Cosentino will be presenting our tool as part of the Carbon Newbie Summit in New York – part of New York Climate Week.
As well as contributors to the Carbon Almanac like Anna, there will be speakers and panelists from:
The whole summit will be live-streamed from 9:30am ET (2:30pm BST), and you can follow along on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Or use the same link to access the recording to watch at your leisure.
If you don’t know much about the climate crisis, or you’re worried that all the effort you’ve put into reducing your personal carbon footprint might just have been a con to keep things as they are, this summit and our tool will help you find more ways to make a positive impact.
Enjoy!
I’m slowly working my way through “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Enjoying a story or two before I go to sleep is a great way to unwind and bring myself back to my proper place in the world.
Two things stood out from last night’s reading:
The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, or ‘the words that come before all else’, the words that begin every meeting, every negotiation, every celebration. Here’s a video of it, recorded for Earth Day.
and
“In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition.”
What would happen if I read that Address at the start of every day?
What would happen if we all did? Whenever we gather?
Something good I think.
Which makes it well worth sharing.