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Change: the magic pill?
Long term followers of my blog will know that I am often entertained / educated by Ben Goldacre and his Bad Science column. Ben frequently talks about our modern-day obsession with “magic” pills.
Given the easy choice of popping a pill versus the hard choice of exercising more, eating and drinking less crap… we will take the pill.
The problem is that we know that the pill won’t really work. It won’t be long-term. It won’t be sustainable. We know we really need to change our lifestyle.
The Sunday papers
There is something weirdly nostalgic about the British seaside (a mood captured quite neatly here actually). Decaying piers. Plastic buckets and spades, archaic amusement arcades, fish and chips in newspaper wrappers. Rubbish weather.
It should be a terrible experience. But I have just spent a long weekend down in East Sussex. We had great food, friendly service (generally) and lots of fun. It helps when you are watching your 18 month old daughter charging hysterically along the rolling dunes of Camber Sands.
The ears and the conscience
My clients and colleagues know that I can get quite passionate about what we do…
Last week’s data from the CIPD’s quarterly survey sparked a not untypical response from me. The survey revealed that 32% of organisations are expecting to make redundancies this year. Now that’s a big number (although perhaps not as big as we might have expected?)…
Choppy waters ahead
I don’t think I’m alone in not being able to work out the current business environment.
Our experience this year has actually been pretty positive. We’ve been lucky enough to meet lots of new clients and to grow the business quite aggressively. Which has been great.
Understandably clients are rightly being cautious with their diminishing budgets. They are looking for value. They are engaging us on specific (often very challenging) projects. Which is exciting.
Reaching remote workers
Many of the organisations we’re now working with have a major challenge reaching workers who simply do not sit an office all day. Whether it’s factory workers in Heavy Industrials, Lab workers at a Healthcare company or a remote salesforce in Financial Services.
We are all leaders now… or are we?
Consultants have a pretty bad reputation (probably well-earned) for adding jargon to the common vocabulary. Whether it’s terms like “matrix management”, or “line of sight”, or “C-suite”.
Usually these terms start with exactly the right intentions. To take a specific, complex situation and make it that bit simpler for the audience to understand.
The problem is that other people then take these well-intended phrases and use them out of context. The phrases then take on a life of their own. Often a long way from the intended meaning.
Keeping it in the family
I was recently asked by Donna a former colleague to give my perspective on family-run organisations. How different is it working with them as opposed to PLCs?
I’ve worked with a few family-run organisations in my time with H&K (and indeed my Dad ran one before his retirement).
The power of great feedback
I have just got my feet back under the desk after over two weeks out of the office. It was a surreal mix of my Stag weekend, a week with the in-laws and then week of WPP Training. I came back home utterly exhausted. But with perhaps a bit more insight about my strengths and weaknesses. And that was just fromthe in-laws!
Seriously, I felt very fortunate that H&K was prepared to allow me a week away from the fray on our fantastic Maestro course.
One voice?
Okay… I’m about to have a bit of a rant…I think there is a bit of a misconception among some comms practitioners around the term “consistency”.
I sometimes hear practitioners encourage their leadership to be more aligned or consistent. Even sometimes to speak with “one voice”… and to be honest when I hear that I cringe slightly.
After all we are not living in some kind of Orwellian dictatorship where it’s a ”thought-crime” for a leader to go “off message”…
Time for politicians to grow up
It’s been an intriguing couple of weeks in the UK. Our new coalition Government seems to have caught the imagination of the media… and maybe the public at large.
It’s been really fascinating observing the way political commentators have responded to this “new” politics. The instinct has always been I suppose to look for division and conflict. That’s what makes a good story right?
