Welcome to Amanda’s semi-regular blog, where she writes about how to improve business profitability
Make progress visible
One of the key objectives for those leading long change projects, is keeping the team motivated.
Productivity growth requires change management
Learning shouldn’t stop when we leave formal education
Write process not a manifesto
I’m reading Neurodiversity at Work[i] at present, a recent publication by Amanda Kirby and Theo Smith. In it they say: We also need to ensure that diversity and inclusion is a part of all our processes and not a policy that is written and then stuck in a drawer.
I would argue that all too often processes are written and then stuck in a folder/drawer and never communicated, followed or implemented…
Why are we so afraid of difference?
I recently engaged in the services of a virtual assistant. I had two really great candidates to choose from in the final lineup, and quite honestly could have engaged either one of them. In order to make a decision, I decided to pick the one that was least like me. Whilst it’s often tempting to recruit people like us, from a business and productivity point of view, recruiting for difference is often the smarter move.
Have you outgrown your current software?
If software had a sell-by date I’m sure that UK productivity would be far higher than it has been since 2008.
We’re rubbish at defining problems
Most of us are pretty rubbish at defining problems. We spend so much time in our heads ruminating the problem we shut down our ability to think expansively about it.
Stuck prices requires a leap
Many years ago, I ran a software development house. I and a team of 4 other developers wrote and supported bespoke software for a range of clients. We were writing what would now be called an ERP system, without the finance bit.
Around the time my second son was born, over 12 years ago, the company finances were in dire straits.
Promise and expectation alignment
Every organisation, whether a membership organisation, a food manufacturer or a professional services firm, creates in its clients an expectation. It does this through the expression of its promise. This expectation may be written and specific, or unwritten and implied.
Visual Stories Drive Change
I believe we can drive organisational change faster if we harness the power of visual stories.