Tag: culture

Categories
The internet the world

Exhaustion and hyper vigilance

There’s a real way in which the business models, the technological underpinnings of how we get our … political information, have oriented towards outrage and urgency. And so I think that there’s a deep way in which we are manipulated into … feeling a constant state of emergency. And it would be one thing if that was a productive emotion, but what I think it leads to is a constant state of either exhaustion or hypervigilance, both of which can be bad in their own ways. — Ezra Klein

This quote is from a conversation between Ezra Klein and Krista Tippett about politics, polarisation and the media. Something about it though, also reminded me of what it feels like in dysfunctional organisations.

Ezra Klein — How We Walked Into This and How We Can Walk Out

 

Categories
Strategy

“It’s much better to be a learn-it-all than a know-it-all” Steve Vamos

“I think design thinking and agile which are big trends in business today are a reflection of the fact that if you are building anything without customer feedback today you are deluded”

“Mistakes are learning. You cannot innovate, create and progress without mistakes”

HT to my friend Pauline Lucas for sharing this with me.

Categories
The Work Experience

Agile teams thread.

Agile or not, lots to reflect on and love in this thread on agile teams (threadreaderapp) by Susanne Husebo. It start likes this:

  • They start their daily standups on time.
  • They tend to laugh a lot and have fun.
  • Everybody in the team gets to express themselves.
  • They correct and edit each other when they go off track.
  • They try out new things with appetite. But they are quite willing to admit those things didn’t succeed.
  • They often don’t care very much if it looks like they’re working hard.

and gets better and better. See the original tweet here.

Categories
The Work Experience

“You don’t fix culture with process.”

— David J Bland (@davidjbland) April 9, 2015

Categories
The Work Experience

Principles in action – Cut the crap!

I was reminded though of perhaps the most candid and abrupt corporate principle ever — Cut the Crap.

In 2002 the BBC CEO made a speech and a soccer style card:

I would also ask that people in every team in the BBC – be it at Watchdog, Radio Leicester or outside broadcasts – discuss how we make this place better, how we make it exciting, how do we ensure that the cynics and moaners in the organisation – and they’re there in all big organisations – are marginalized. In short how do we cut the crap and make it happen?

To help me I’ve had a yellow card printed which says on it “cut the crap and make it happen” which I plan to bring out at every meeting when someone is trying to stop a good idea rather than make it happen. We’ll send one to anyone who wants one.

The BBC is a pretty extraordinary and innovative media organisation. I guess it worked.

Read more:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/speeches/stories/dyke_makingithappen.shtml

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/feb/08/broadcasting.bbc

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/feb/07/broadcasting.bbc

image from https://newsmutt.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/cut-the-crap/

 

Categories
The Work Experience

Go read the 5 Myths of Great Workplaces

Is there a downside to everyone being happy at work? Is conflict good or bad? Does hiring for cultural fit produce group think? A great summary over at HBR of what to consider if your goal is to foster a critically engaged team.

“… task conflicts produce better decisions and stronger financial outcomes. … Healthy debate encourages group members to think more deeply, scrutinize alternatives, and avoid premature consensus. While many of us view conflict as unpleasant, the experience of open deliberation can actually energizes employees by providing them with better strategies for doing their job.”

Read the rest and the top 5 tips at https://hbr.org/2015/03/5-myths-of-great-workplaces