Category: Innovation

Why ‘Why’?

I’m a fan of Simon Sinek. Mostly this stems from the degree to which the ideas he champions resonate with me on so many levels. I’m cautious not to say that we’re aligned; we’ve never met, but regardless of this minor inconvenience, I like to think we are generally pointing in the same direction.

One of his most popular books is ‘Start with Why’. I like the approach he discusses in its pages as it implicitly advocates individual respect particularly in relation to leading people. Blind obedience should not be expected from anybody; at a minimum leaders should feel an obligation to articulate why they are pointing people in a particular direction and by extension why those people should follow them.

Continue reading “Why ‘Why’?”

Why are we doing this?

I spend a lot of time with organizations of various sizes helping them transition from their current state to their desired future state.

In practice this offers a wide variety of challenges from one organisation to another. Some have great developers but poor processes, others have strong processes, but lack support systems, some are just struggling to understand what their goals are. Inevitably there is some level of confusion, frustration and a sense of someone else ‘just not getting it’.

I’ve increasingly taken on a mission with all of these organisations, a personal mission that I believe goes to the very heart of the malaise that I see in the IT industry over and over again.

That mission is to help everyone remember that once upon a time, not so long ago, this used to be fun.

Continue reading “Why are we doing this?”

Making Change Stick

The only constant is change

In the technology world we’re well used to the shifting sands that epitomise the environment, we’ve always lived with change and embrace it with a fair degree of gusto. In other industries, ones that may not have had a traditional basis in technology, their adoption rates have historically been a bit more ‘pedestrian’. But this world is waking up fast to their need to adapt and change, but in the awakening they are realising that the gap between their ambition and their ability to adapt can range from a crack to a chasm. There are more than enough challenges when determining the nature of the change that an organisation needs to adopt to meet the new opportunities without having to worry whether those changes will actually stick.

Continue reading “Making Change Stick”