Welcome to Amanda’s semi-regular blog, where she writes about how to improve business profitability
Productivity growth requires change management
Learning shouldn’t stop when we leave formal education
We underestimate the Knock-on effect
During the last fuel strike, many fuel stations had to close completely as their pumps were completely dry. When they ran out of fuel, they had no footfall into their stores and so they were unable to sell any of their ancillary products, milk, coffee, confectionery and so on. This is a great example where having one item out of stock can result in zero sales of a range of others.
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.
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.
Visual Stories Drive Change
I believe we can drive organisational change faster if we harness the power of visual stories.