Advancing until you meet fire from the ‘enemy’ is a very effective way of gauging if you have had any impact. It’s not the only measure, but it is a cast iron indicaton that you have stirred something up. I have to thank a former colleague (Howard) for telling me about this. He explained how […]
Do Mundane Things. Get Your Ideas Accepted by Working Behind Enemy Lines, and Don’t be a Martyr.
Having new ideas, particularly big innovative ones, can be dangerous. Radical thinkers and mavericks have a very long history of being persecuted and sometimes being burnt at the stake. Question: Do you really want to be a martyr for your organisational improvement idea? Wouldn’t it be better to achieve positive change by working quietly behind […]
Six email Hand Grenades to avoid before the holidays.
Be honest and own up …….. Have you have ever sent a really horrible email to a colleague at 5pm on a Friday evening? Then, made it worse by switching on ‘out of office’, shutting down the computer and going away on holidays for two weeks? It’s like throwing an email hand grenade over the […]
Facilitation Essentials #1. Why I upgraded from a clockwork cat timer to a countdown /stopwatch app
I’m feeling very modern this week. I’ve upgraded one of the basics in my facilitation box, the cherished kitchen timer. Yes it was a clockwork cat, although it’s previously been a mouse and the inevitable chicken shaped egg timer. For me the timing device has been a very helpful facilitation tool, let me explain. Much […]
Sticking it to the Man! Painted Sparrows on Alcatraz and Disengaged Employees.
Apologies to any birdwatchers that recognise this as a Painted Bunting, and not a common brown sparrow that has been ‘jazzed up’ by an Alcatraz inmate. I read about the Alcatraz painted sparrows in a book by former inmate Darwin Coon. Back in the 1960s the Alcatraz prisoners creatively used their painting equipment on the […]
My epic communication fail…… The 4 Foot Post Story
This week has been about failures in communication. I’ve ended up with 16 feet of timber for fence posts, excellent. Unfortunately it wasn’t in the shape of the two 8 foot lengths I needed. I got four 4 foot lengths. It might as well have been firewood. I could put this down to a sophisticated […]
Malicious Compliance, I hate painting……. and filling in forms.
This week has been all about malicious compliance: filling in my tax return before the £100 fine; ‘helping’ my kids with home work (work out who is least willing and compliant here); completing my expenses form before the deadline; working out why some people are resistant to tagging for document management; and painting a room […]
Bikeshedding: Organisations spend too much time on trivial decisions. Parkinson’s Law of Triviality.
Decision making has always been a challenge . Way back in 1957, to describe his ‘Law of Triviality’, Cyril Northcote Parkinson created the word bikeshedding. Parkinson was hugely experienced in the workings of Government and Academia. He was also responsible for a number of other ‘rules’ you might be familiar with like: Parkinsons Law No.1 ‘work expands to […]
Meetings Sabotage, Additional Field Examples
Lately I’ve been spending time in committee meetings. We love our committee meetings here in Wales, although if you’d like an alternative view, here’s Seth’s Blog on “If committees told the truth”. The one thing committees are great for is spotting sabotage and the meeting saboteurs at work. I thought it would be helpful to […]
Ritual Dissent – getting better proposals and dealing with saboteurs
Ritual Dissent is one of my favourite facilitation techniques. It gets good results quickly and is great for dealing with the saboteurs (see spotting field sabotage post). I was taught it by Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge who also provides a method statement. It’s a very structured approach that minimises the opportunities for the saboteurs to do […]
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