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Dead man working

Isn’t Dead Man Working just the best title for a book? And if @workessence recommends it as an absolute must read, then I just had to read it. This is my reaction to what I read. 

Get stuck in!

Harold Jarche generously linked to one of my old blog posts where I’d included a quote from the social psychologist Karl Weick talking about ‘chaotic action:

 

Once people begin to act, they generate tangible outcomes in some context and this helps them to discover what is occurring, what needs to be explained, and what should be done next. 

 

I suppose chaotic action is just another way of saying that we just need to get stuck in. Rather than getting stuck in, I have just been stuck. This post is about what I am doing to get going again.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again

 

I came away from the Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Paris last week energised by conversations with old and new friends. I also came away more convinced than ever that there are insights on making the transition to new ways of working that are largely overlooked. These insights come from the last major upheaval in management practices – the shift from traditional to lean and agile manufacturing.

Celebrating unsung commitment at work

This post is about celebrating unsung commitment at work and what happened when my sisters and one of their friends, who are senior nurses, joined me for the launch party for my new book, Smart Working: Creating the Next Wave, a few days ago in London.

Thinking about creative pollination

 

This short post muses on creative pollination.

The WWW Workplace

The ‘WWW Workplace’ is about wow (enabling technology), wonder (imagination / possibilities), and who (skills, knowledge and support). These are reflections on the inspirations for the phrase jumping into my mind.

What if? Re-imagining and re-creating the business of business.

I have been following two hashtags on Twitter this week, both compelling and in my mind very much related. They are #bizreimagined and #francis. The first was an event convened by Microsoft in London and I think the theme is self-explanatory. The second is the response to the Francis Report about catastrophic failure in a part of the National Health Service in the UK.

 

This post is a reflection on re-imagining and re-creating the business of business.

It's about a whole lot more than employee engagement

I have been asked to advise on business use of social technologies for yet another European-funded research project on workplace innovation and new ways of working. This study will add to the plethora that already exists. What should we already know?

Get up off your arse and do something about it!

This post returns to a post I wrote last year, Do Better or Do Differently. In it, I quote two mantras that came out of the NixonMcInnes Meaning Conference in Brighton:

 

“don’t ask for permission, just do it”

 

“believe in the power of small actions"

 

I have another mantra that I want to add, which precedes the other two:

 

“stop whining; decide to do something about it”

 

The two people in the Do Better or Do Differently blog post did. 

Creating the next wave of customer-focused performance

This post makes the case for the value of old knowledge for current contexts and proposes that it needs to be discovered, contextualised and put into practice.