Category: Change

Build Back Better? Try the M25 first

Post author By The Burble....
Post date October 2, 2020
No Comments on Build Back Better? Try the M25 first

Photo by Alex Knight on Pexels.com

I was sitting in the traffic on the M25 yesterday staring at 2 miles of red taillights when I was overjoyed (?) to hear a government minister tell me how much he was keen to build back better following Covid 2019. Another case of the video not matching the audio which is becoming a common problem at the moment across the UK. A lot of talk about building back better but little real activity as the country heads back towards some form of norma.

It feels like we are about to miss an opportunity that only comes once (if at all in a generation). We have the opportunity to change the direction we have bene heading and do more to bring in the environment and the disconnected into the decision making processes.

But amongst business and government leaders across the world there is a looming decision that many have yet to take. Are leaders willing and able to change what they do and how the inspire the change we need? Are Leaders going to Lead?

And it is going to depend on what lessons you have taken away from the Covid crisis. Do you see it as an interruption to your sense of direction or do you see it as imbuing you with a new sense of purpose driven by the change that you and millions of others have been forced to go through over the past 6 months. Is everything going to return to the way that it was with a few tweaks around the edges (face masks and less office space for example) or will business and individuals begin to think differently and to really mean it when they say they want to build back better.

Photo by Alexas Fotos on Pexels.com

Building back better requires a lot of change and change is hard. Change requires a loss of control, it requires anger, pain and acceptance, a grieving for the old and a realisation that the new is possible and that it will be better. It requires significant effort. And the starting point, the loss of control (or the loss of existing norms, processes, relationships etc) is usually the most difficult thing to accomplish. And the bigger the change desired, the more people effected, the more complex the change being sought all leads to a greater desire for the status quo. It is for this reason that the term ‘create a burning platform’ is used so much in business to encourage people to let go of tradition.

So you can imagine how hard it is to change a country. It is hugely complex with vast numbers of people desperately clinging to the past and in many cases for very good reasons – the past works. Freeing up people to look to a new future is really hard. Which is why Covid 19 provides an opportunity that we should not waste.

Covid 19 forced the whole country to let go of the past almost overnight. Something that has probably not happened since the outbreak of the second world war. We have been through the toughest part of the change process already.

As we all adapted to Lockdown in the UK people began to enjoy the silence of less cars and planes, the ability to ride a bike and spend time with family, balancing work with personal life more effectively than they have been able to before. All the while a number of businesses maintained or improved their productivity and at least retained their levels of customer service. Do we really want to go back to the old ways

I am acutely aware that this has been a very tough time for a lot of people who are worried about their future and what and where they will be in a months time, let alone across the timelines required to build back better. But going back to the way we used to be with less in jobs and with a rapid growth in digitisation, automation and robotics coming (companies will be running quickly to automate so as to be less reliant on people who get sick) isn’t going to help these disconnected people either. Maybe creating role in sustainable enterprises that protect and enhance the environment or local communities might actually be a better idea?

I don’t want to think about all the effort people went through changing overnight to cope with the challenges of Covid 19 going to waste. That would be wrong and I want to lead in a different direction? And I hope to be trusted to do so

So will other leaders lead?

Tags BuildBackBetter, change, Covid, Covid 19, Covid19, Environment, Environmental, Leader, Leadership, M25, People

Business Change Communication Customers Leadership People Technology

Who will see the most benefits from AI?

Post author By The Burble....
Post date May 9, 2018
No Comments on Who will see the most benefits from AI?

A recent report from PWC titled ‘Will robots steal our jobs’ summarised a number of investigations into the potential impact on jobs as a result of the rapid development and implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI, which in this context includes robotics and machine learning.) The report indicated that up to 30% of insurance and financial services roles could be impacted although exact numbers remain not surprisingly, elusive. Let me repeat that, up to 1/3^rd of all roles in the insurance industry might cease to exist or have to change in a significant way.

That’s a pretty astonishing estimate. With some significant impacts.

Companies are going to undergo major transformations; changing what they do, how they create value, and how they deal with customers. And perhaps, the biggest impact will be on employees; how will they deal with this transformation?

Tags AI, automation, Business, change, future, insurance, insurtech, jobs, People, robotics, society, stakeholders, Technology

Business Change Technology

Do you want an umbrella with that?

Post author By The Burble....
Post date August 29, 2017
No Comments on Do you want an umbrella with that?

Image courtesy of Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As with all choices selecting the right take away coffee has taken on a level of complexity that was thought impossible only a few years ago. And so as I start off on my regular walk around the local park I am almost always sidetracked by what I’m going to order from my local cafe.

Now to be fair to them they don’t yet seem to be in the same league as Starbucks but there is enough to give me pause for thought. And as usual this time I managed to choose the iced coffee and after walking round the corner into a rain shower I immediately wanted the hot cappuccino.

And obviously this got me thinking about Jeremy Vine the UK BBC Radio Presenter.

Tags 5G, cafe, coffee, Experience, future, IoT, IT, Mobile Phones, places, rain, Technology, umbrella

Business Change Communication Customers Leadership Risk Self Driving Cars Technology trust

The business of trust.

Companies and businesses have a problem – Trust. Put simply there is a decline in how much trust is being placed in business by customers and society in general. And a business that isn’t trusted isn’t going to survive for long. But is trust that important?

I think so. Customers are spending more time researching the companies they buy from, and the fact that so much information is available on line, opens up a business to a lot more scrutiny than previously possible. As customers are subject to exponential levels of change they will look to anchor themselves through relationships based on trust.

Would you go to a Doctor you didn’t trust?

And businesses play a huge role in society, providing income and rewarding places to work, generating wealth and making tax payments to help governments support their chosen areas of investment. The problem is partly guilt by association. As Edelman reported there is a collapse in trust in 4 of the major institutions (Business, Government, NGOs and Media) in many countries around the world.

At the same time however, businesses face some challenges that while not specific to industry will have a large and potentially dramatic impact. The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) is beginning to reshape what business is and what it does and how it does it.

And trust is going to be come one of the most important topics businesses will have to deal with.

Tags Business, Communication, company, Finance, future, IT, Mobile Phones, People, society, taxes, Technology, trust, women

Change Communication Leadership

Leadership – Just abandon your family?

Post author By The Burble....
Post date July 24, 2017
No Comments on Leadership – Just abandon your family?

Leadership, or getting people to change can be tough. But being dumb seems to be a whole lot easier. In this article from Business Insider (BI) you’ll find a great example of what I think we can all agree is pretty dumb leadership.

As I have argued before leadership is not something that comes from your position in an organisation although the more senior you are does tend to give you an implied authority to lead. We expect people further up the hierarchy to lead. That is surely their role. So if you’re a CEO it is expected that you lead. Not that all you can do is shout.

But from what I am seeing more and more leaders, rather than leading are simply hectoring or demanding ultimate loyalty. What I am seeing more and more is the need of some of these high level leaders to have you put them and their role in the business above everything. Above what you are working on at that moment, above your social life, your weekends and above all above your family.

And it is more and more about them and less and less about creating something together as a team.

And this makes no sense. Because what you want if you’re leading is to change something. And to change something you need people give more than they absolutely have to.

The more hectoring that goes on, the more it is about me the leader and making me feel good the less effort anyone is going to put in. I particularly like the definition from Aubrey Daniels International which talks about Discretionary Effort.

Discretionary effort is the effort people can put in over and above what they absolutely have to do. And as a leader who wants to change things you need people to put in extra effort. Change means by definition doing something that is above what people absolutely have to do.

Being a leader means having followers. And followers want to be respected by their leader for what they do and for their own lives. If it’s all about the leader then it simply isn’t leadership.

The article from BI identifies a CEO type that really needs consigning to history. I was asked what I would do in an interview if I was asked to put the CEO above everything. I would simply walk out of the interview. That is not a company that I would work for,

Let me know what examples of good and bad leadership have you seen?

Tags Business, ceo, Communication, Experience, family, Leadership

Business Change Communication Leadership People

Leaders shouldn’t be so sad….

Post author By The Burble....
Post date July 18, 2017
No Comments on Leaders shouldn’t be so sad….

We are all on a journey

I met up with a colleague in the office today who relayed to me that he’d just had dinner with someone who left the company a few months ago. Meaning it to be a positive statement my colleague regaled me with stores about how his friend was now doing all the things he didn’t have time for when working such as

seeing family
getting fit
spending time on his hobbies
enjoying watching his family grow up

And all I could think about was how sad that sounded. Sad that it was only when his friend was between jobs that he managed to find time for the rest of his life. And yet so much of what leaders seem to expect is to work all hours that exist. And this rubs off on their teams who get equally caught up in the working all hours syndrome mainly because their boss does the same.

I once worked for a leader who wanted to know what was going on continuously. He worked all hours and wanted everyone else to do the same. He demanded to know whatever was happening before anyone else. Presumably because this made him feel good. After a month of 24/7 working (at least that’s what it felt like) I picked up the phone to him and had one of the most difficult conversations I have had. I simply told him that I was not going to talk to him every hour, txt him every 15 mins and make sure he had regular emails. I let him know that I felt I was employed as a trusted officer of the company and once I had agreed with him the objectives he should trust me to get on with it.

He really didn’t like it. The silence on the phone spoke volumes

But he eventually accepted what I’d said and we then worked in the way we’d agreed and despite his nervousness it actually worked quite well.

Sometimes you need to lead your boss.

Or as I sometimes tell my colleagues – boss your superior.

Tags 24/7, Business, Communication, Experience, Leadership, Mobile Phones

Business Change Customers Leadership Service

Jeff Bezos is out to crush Blue Apron — Quartz

Post author By The Burble....
Post date July 18, 2017
No Comments on Jeff Bezos is out to crush Blue Apron — Quartz

I reposted this simply as I have a good friend who works at Blue Apron.

I have a huge amount of respect for Amazon and what it does. From a retailer of on line books that once advertised it had 1m titles to a retailer that seems to cover almost all areas of commerce through to a cloud computing company and now a fresh food store, Amazon does it and seemingly does it well. All with amazing customer service.

Most businesses will admit to prioritising certain aspects of their business based on an argument that it is impossible to do and pay for everything that is needed. While I am sure Amazon prioritises aspects of its business it is fair to say that from a customers perspective you don’t tend to see the impact of this.

And that is a sign of a good business.

Blue Apron has an Amazon problem. Two weeks before the meal-kit company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange, Amazon inked a deal to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. One week after the IPO, Amazon Technologies, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, registered a trademark in the US for the phrase, “We do the prep.…

via Jeff Bezos is out to crush Blue Apron — Quartz

Tags Amazon, Blue Apron, Business, change, Communication, Leadership

Change Communication Customers Risk

I have seen the future – it doesn’t work properly

Post author By The Burble....
Post date November 28, 2016
No Comments on I have seen the future – it doesn’t work properly

Last Friday found me sitting in the office with a number of colleagues watching another corporate briefing. I say briefing rather than call as the executive team had decided to try and do the briefing through a live video conference broadcast. Now while I am the first to say that some of my colleagues have the perfect faces for radio, it was good to be able to see the team present some key facts about their business and the challenges they face. While the words were clear and powerful, being able to see the body language really made a difference. I hope they will repeat the process again.

Image courtesy of ddpavumba at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

And the best bit was that the technology didn’t work very well.

Tags Business, change, Communication, People

Buildings and Places Change Customers People Service

Back to the Future

In the film Back to the Future Marty McFly is blasted back to 1955 running the risk that whatever he does will affect his future. And of course this being Hollywood all works out in the end. So much so that 2 more films were made in the series. Its one of the most enjoyable trilogies I’ve watched.

In the film you can see linkages between the future and the past but a definite change between the two. The future is definitely ahead of the past. Which to be honest isn’t the way I’ve found coming back to the UK. The country seems to have got stuck.

I should probably provide some support for my conjecture. Well firstly the transport system really hasn’t changed that much at all. The trains are overcrowded and still have no air-conditioning. And people don’t talk to each other (indeed go out of their way not to talk to anyone at all) so the whole process is one of the least enjoyable features of being back in the UK.

Now lets talk about 4G. The mobile phone network of choice for most countries around the world. In the UK the phone network is simply bad. And I have heard many different excuses. Apparently London has too many high buildings which is actually doesn’t. And in any event I give you Hong Kong. A country and a city that has nothing other than tall buildings and a 4G network that works – works so well in fact that almost everyone is watching video on their phone, continuously. It also has its own Tardis

So if it isn’t about the size of the buildings the second excuse is that the network is simply too busy. Which implies that the people who build the networks simply have no idea how many people want to use their phones. I can’t quite believe that as the people who run the networks seem perfectly able to produce adverts to sign up new users. Thus presumably slowing down their networks even further.

Well at least the UK now has a number of Polish builders so hiring a builder must have got better. Well I am sure it has got better if your landlord uses a Polish builder. If they don’t well believe me nothing has changed in the 7 years I’ve been out of the UK. Appointment times are randomly adhered to, work is fudged, covered over or simply not done. So nothing changes there.

And despite all the excuses I can only assume that the leaders of businesses big and small simply don’t care to much. And being British we don’t complain or do anything about it.Which is what being British is all about. Don’t take too much care, and don’t complain.

I always knew it would take time to settle in and I am pretty sure there are things that have moved forward. The internet for example, if you don’t want to use your phone too much, is quick and works well. The council services in Greenwich have been excellent, and I mean excellent, which I wouldn’t have thought possible and food is definitely a better proposition here than in the US and Hong Kong.

I’ll get past the angst about the UK at some point. Probably the sooner the better…

Tags Back to the Future, Builder, Business, Greenwich, People, Travel, UK

Change Communication People

Back in 2011 I fell out of love

Post author By The Burble....
Post date May 8, 2016
No Comments on Back in 2011 I fell out of love

As anyone who read my last post knows I have just returned to the UK after an 8 year absence. And it doesn’t feel like home. Maybe this post explains some of it. Maybe not but I still feeling a little melancholy being back in the UK. I hope that this changes as I have so much to look forward to this year.

This is how is was.

I guess it has happened to all of us at sometime in our lives.

You wake up one morning and something just doesn’t feel quite right; you’re not quite sure what it is but something definitely doesn’t feel right. So you ignore it, go on admit you this is how you deal with it when you know its not quite right but you can’t put your finger on it.

So you carry on hoping everything will be OK but somehow that nagging itch just won’t go away. You even try harder – you really want to be in love again. Indeed you go out of your way to look for all the good things, the words, the views, the deep meaningful glances that you’ve treasured for so long. But somehow that itch keeps needing to be scratched and whatever you do it just seems to be there.

So for a while you ignore everything negative, you’ve convinced yourself that it is something to do with you and therefore best to leave everything as it is. You go on as if nothing has happened and you feel happy, you look at everything with rose colored glasses and the world is a happy place again. You were right it was all your fault, you’re just feeling a bit down and missing the sun or something and really everything is OK.

The problem is that it isn’t. You know it and now so do your best friends. They can see that you’ve lost a bit of your desire and verve and that you’re just not quite as happy as you used to be. Even when they can still see how happy they are and really nothing has changed so you should be as happy as them, they know, they can tell, they can see it in your eyes. They even try to help. really its not that bad, it will get better, it will be better than it was.

The problem is that you know it won’t be.

So you begin to think about it, giving shape and form to this nameless concern, this feeling, this worry. It grows, begins to take over your days and all of a sudden a lot of the good things you’ve grown up with all of a sudden feel grayer than they did before. What was obvious yesterday becomes questionable. What was the bedrock of your being a week ago begins to suffer a series of quakes varying an increasing Richter scale number. Everything begins to shake and your solid base begins to liquefy and all of s sudden you’re afloat being tossed about and trying to find you’re way back to solid ground. You’re cross and angry; how could this have happened after all the work and effort you’re put in; of course you could have done more but you did enough.

YES I DID ENOUGH.

You eventually get to a place where the storms subside a bit and you get to think. Maybe everything isn’t quite as good as you thought originally. Maybe you do need to do something about it. Maybe the time is now, you never did really feel attached, you’ve always looked elsewhere. You look for justification of what you’re thinking and miraculously it is everywhere. It’s straight into your face 24 hours a day – how could you have been so stupid. Isn’t it obvious, it clearly isn’t right, its just got to change, you’ve got to do something about it and you need to do it NOW.

All of a sudden the way ahead is clear.

You’re friends can see you’ve changed. They know what is coming, they know they will have to help and get you through this whatever may happen. That’s what friends are for, even if they don’t like it they dust off their smiling faces and get themselves aligned to help.

But in this case there isn’t anything they can do.

I’ve fallen out of love with my home country.

At the end of the day I will always be a confused mix of English and British. I have a lot to be proud of coming from a nation that has done a lot of good (and a lot of bad that I am not proud of) but I simply don’t recognize the country anymore. I am not sure anywhere else is better but that’s not the point. I don’t feel happy with my home country anymore and maybe in a while I will tell you why.

Tags Englishman in New York, People, Travel