Have you ever been in a meeting where you spend an eternity discussing something relatively trivial, and then microseconds on something significant? If the answer is yes, the chances are you’ve been Bikeshedding… Bikeshedding is the common name for Parkinson’s Law of Triviality: … ‘the amount of time a committee will spend discussing an item […]
How to Spot the Decoy Effect in Business Case Options Appraisals.
Coffee Choices and the Decoy Effect. Have you every bought a coffee and been ‘bedazzled’ into getting a bigger or frothier one than you’d planned? “It just seemed sooooohhh much better value to have the Maximo Grande Frothiata…”. Basically you’ve had your behaviour ‘modified’ by the retailer using a process called Decoy Pricing or the […]
Why isn’t the Retail Sector doing more ‘Nudging’ of Hand Sanitisation?
Is anyone else thinking about Behavioural Nudges and Hand Sanitisation? If you’ve ventured to the supermarket since COVID-19 you’ve probably experienced some version of the ‘Hand Sanitiser Station’. The good, the bad and the ugly. My experiences have ranged from the pathetic – empty bottles of disinfectant spray lurking behind the crisps – through to […]
Going Blind on a Spacewalk. Can Simulation Training Help?
Imagine you’ve made it to the International Space Station (ISS), left the ship on your spacewalk, then you go blind. What do you do? This is a guest post from my friend Sam Williams (@SamW112358 on Twitter). It’s Sam’s first post and is a prelude to him launching his own blog. Hopefully you enjoy it, […]
Do Epidemiologists Play COVID-19 Computer Games After Work?
I’m guessing that during a pandemic most Epidemiologists will barely have time to sleep, so time in-front of the X-Box will be limited. But this is a serious question. Nobody will be surprised to hear that a bundle of COVID-19 related computer games have emerged in the last few months. Most of them ‘shovelware’. But […]
Trojan Mice in 900 Seconds
Be careful what you wish for… After blathering on about Trojan Mice for ages people have actually paid attention. Thank you Paul Taylor for the mentions in this post ‘The Complex Problem with Big Change Programmes’ and ‘People Aren’t Sick of Change, They are Sick of Change Programmes’. There’s an important point in Paul’s posts. […]
The Retirement Speech Test. “I wish I’d said that years ago”
The Perfect Retirement Speech. I’m thinking of offering a course on how to write the perfect retirement speech. Nothing fancy, clever or sophisticated, just three bite-size chunks. Part 1 is just a case of, writing down what you really think about a specific topic connected to your working life; take your pick from the following […]
IMAGINE – everyone working towards a common aim, the benefit of Future Generations. #ChurchillFellowship Post12
This is a post for anyone interested in how; people, the place where they live, what happens there, private enterprise, public services and government, all co-exist in a way that is focussed on making sure future generations have something left for them to continue in that place. So, I’d like you to take a deep […]
What’s normal for the spider is chaos for the fly. Power shift and co-production. #ChurchillFellowship Post 8
Context is everything. Thanks to Beth Smith (@bethansmith93) for ‘what is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly’, which inspired the illustration above. The quote neatly describes how different experiences of a situation (the context), can massively influence your feelings and also the decisions you make about the situation. For the spider it’s […]
Cooperatives – The Basics. Beginners notes on whats behind ‘cooperative’. Churchill Fellowship Post 3.
I’ve got my Coop card, purchased for a pound. It entices me away from Aldi and into the local Coop; 5% rewards for me and 1% for my local community. But having the card, and being a ‘Member’ doesn’t mean I actually understand what’s going on. Sadly I haven’t developed a deeper insight into the […]
