idenk Blog

Top Tips to Transform Team Working…#2

ross — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:00:13 +0000

So if the first thing to invest in to transform your team is the desire to improve (seizing problems with a spirit of curiosity and determination), the second is pretty familiar to readers of these blogs:

2.Make time: to get the personal productivity habit… so you have time to think, for email, to meet 1:1, to meet as group, to do great work…

3.?…coming soon…

Top Tips to Transform Team Working…#1

ross — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:00:36 +0000

Our first sign of an effective team? A desire to improve. To seize challenges and difficulties and try to sort them. There is momentum and determination in the desire to continuously improve. Toyota has a mantra: “problems are good”. Acknowledged problems + a degree of curiosity is a great first step for any team. A firm foundation to build on.

Top Tips to Transform Team Working…prelude

ross — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:00:53 +0000

Over the last few weeks I have given a number of presentations sharing our 10 signs of an effective team. I have presented these in a form of a checklist to guide professional practice. Surgeon, Atul Gawande, makes a powerful case for the impact of checklists to inform the reliable work of pilots, engineers and operating theatre staff. Checklists, he says, are useful in situations where there is low ignorance (ie people tend to know what they SHOULD do), but a high propensity for ineptitude (ie failing to apply what is known).

The next three idenk digests will list the first 3 items in our 10 point checklist for great team working. Before that, take time to think

1) What checklists do you, your team, your professional tribe or your organisation already use?

2) Where might checklists to codify and standardise be useful?

Time managment tips

ross — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:00:52 +0000

A bit more on personal productivity: through the words and tips of a well-known range of people in The Guardian.

And a previous, popular, blog of ours too.

What sort of boss?

ross — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:00:27 +0000

Are you (or do you have) an average or extraordinary boss? We like this blog – shared here in case you missed it when it was going quasi-viral.

This links to the Valve Handbook and this, the work of Gerard Fairtlough at www.idenk.co.uk/ra .

Neat stuff.

Plane adverts

ross — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:00:42 +0000

Before a movie started on a long flight, a couple of days ago, there were a couple of adverts. One for a pricey property complex in an Asian city, strap-line: “Your world, according to you”.

And then a premium car advert: “Building on your values – timeless values, such as hard work”

First person, first place. Pandering…selling

The future of…..noise

ross — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:00:14 +0000

I was at the MCA in Sydney this week – great exhibition on time and clocks (in the ‘seconds mater’, disorientating, modern, western sort of way). The new wing is pretty cool to look at – but deafening to wander around and, especially, to eat in. All block concrete and bouncing of airwaves.

Having mild tinnitus, and playing in a few bands, I am interested in noise. And the future of noise. I have a hunch that over the next 3 decades we will see noise in public places becoming a key issue (a bit like the journey on public smoking)

I have seen schools with impressive noise reduction in corridors (carpet on floor, soft display boards on walls) and there is already big business in managing acoustics in high end restaurants and offices. This site is starting to nudge in that direction with a focus on atmosphere.

The D’s of time management

ross — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:00:18 +0000

You know about our interest in personal productivity.

And our next business briefing is going to be about choice.

This blog integrates the two…with the Ds of time management.

Pretty much all authors and experts are agreed on first three when faced with a new demand for some of your time and commitment:

1) Do it, if you can, in next 10 mins

2) Delegate it to someone else if you can

3) Delay it to another point in the next 10 days if you don’t have time or a colleague

The choice there might seem simple – but the habits can be hard to develop…

And for a harder choice, what should we do with the rest of the requests and issues?

One option is to Delete: don’t stockpile – dump anything you cant handle with the other 3Ds above

Or Detail it: add entries to a long, long list.

(This links to our blog of 17 Nov 2011 on memory – “To memorise or…” have a look)

Fashions…in food

ross — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:00:04 +0000

The way we serve fancy food (course after course), is a relatively recent invention – see service a la Russe.

However, fashions change and now

1) At dinner parties, putting a file of food on the table to grab is fine

2) And many restaurants go for ‘sharing plates’

What prim and proper stuff is going on around you, that you need to question? Some default thinking?

Do you like Dilbert?

ross — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:00:56 +0000

The world of work is changing.

For many years Goran Carstedt, previously a senior leaders in IKEA and Volvo (and now part of many initiatives from the Society of Organisational Learning to The Clinton Climate Initiative), has encouraged CEOs to recognise the need for their organisations to be ‘worthy of the fullest commitment’ of those who work in them. Like rights and responsibilities, that are two sides of a coin, this piece picks up the need for individuals to think of what will make for worthy work for them.