After our post on 7-Eleven, we spotted this…
Given the ubiquity of Tesco Express (in the UK at least), what about this for a striking rebrand from a popular local convenience store?
Tesco should be flattered by the ‘steal with pride’ approach.
After our post on 7-Eleven, we spotted this…
Given the ubiquity of Tesco Express (in the UK at least), what about this for a striking rebrand from a popular local convenience store?
Tesco should be flattered by the ‘steal with pride’ approach.
Tags: brand
In the weekend supplement to The Guardian Magazine on 1st January New Year, Oliver Burkeman, whilst dismissing positive thinking, writes “motivation follows action”.
We are not sure who first coined that phrase, but think it is a great mantra to live by. Our own experience is testimony to this.
What do you think? We would love to know.
And see here for inspiration on the topic.
Two and a bit weeks into the new year…do any of these sayings help? All draw inspiration from positive psychology.
“Motivation follows action”
“First you make your habits, then your habits make you”
“Fake it till you make it!”
“Put our behaviours where we want them, then our mind and heart will catch up”
“First hands, then head and heart”
Finally, from Ghandi…”be the change you wish to see in the world” (but that is possibly another story).
Tags: behaviour, change, happiness, health, responsibility
One of our Directors volunteers to help with music at a local primary school by playing the piano. Along with a couple of others, they introduced recorder lessons, singing during assemblies and musical shows in the summer and at Christmas. That was seven years ago.
At first they worked mostly with the older children, then gradually involved the younger classes step-by-step. It wasn’t always easy to get time with the kids to practice and a lot were shy or embarrased to take part.
This week she noticed that when playing a song as everyone left assembly, one of the children started singing along and then the rest all joined in spontaneously.
It takes a long time to change the culture of a place but it can be done.
What behaviours would you like to change in your business or team? More knowledge sharing and less ‘silo working’? More innovation and less “that will never work here”? A better balance between work and the rest of life?
Whatever it is, you should start making the change now. Getting them to sing takes time.
Tags: behaviour, culture, organisation
We know of a few people who have had laser eye surgery where what they could expect during and after the treatment wasn’t made clear. It made us think about what it takes to give informed consent – especially where a cash payment is involved.
We think this 5-level model applies to buying services like higher education and consultancy as well as any form of health care.
Are you given:
1) sufficient technical details to understand what the service involves
2) an accurate impression of what the experience will be like
3) a clear statement of the possible side-effects of the intervention
4) information on whether key practitioners delivering the service actually recommend it to others and use it for themselves
5) help to weigh the cost/benefit for yourself and what it means for you individually?
And as always, caveat emptor.
Tags: choices, Decision-making
When facing changes in our work or personal life it helps to have a ‘Plan B’ as well as a ‘Plan A’. If we can be more imaginative in widening our ideas of what the future might look like, we can increase the repertoire of options available to us.
An example of this is personal scenario planning when facing possible job changes. ‘Plan A’ is often “I hope they keep me on, doing what I do now”.
To move beyond this, it is useful to face our fears. “What is the worst case?” By articulating our anxieties, we can move from just feeling them to confronting them and then to mitigating them. Ask yourself “what am I really afraid of, how would I cope, how could I soften the impact of what might happen?”
Now try to come up with an interesting ‘Plan B’. “What’s an alternative future career or line of work that I could envisage given the goals and resources available to me?” Try to spot the trends you see around you that offer new opportunities. Review the things you’ve done successfully which you can build on. Write down the contacts you know who can help.
It may be a time to start achieving those personal ambitions which you’ve often thought about but never really acted on.
Ask us for a for more on this or a summary of our favourite article on personal resilience.
Hedges are a quintessential part of our countryside. They distinctively define many rural landscapes, from Arden’s high hollies to Exmoor’s beech banks. As well as delineating ownership, sub-dividing land into manageable units, sheltering livestock and controlling soil erosion, hedges also offer perfect and varied wildlife habitats. They are alive with insects, birds, mammals. At these ‘safe junctions’, so much essential business of life gets carried out.
The Enclosure Acts of the 18th Century led to 200,000 miles of new hedges. Open fields and common lands were divided into smaller spaces. But over half of this has disappeared since 1950; replaced by much larger, open and uniform spaces. The adverse effect on the well-being of a huge range of plants and animals is extensively documented.
Is there a parallel with the places we work in? The large ‘open plan’ office is now the most common approach to the modern working environment. They’re cheaper than lots of smaller rooms and you can change the layout more easily if circumstances dictate.
But where are the safe junctions? The passing places for unplanned social contact and easy conversation? The cosy spots to be apart? The little available research on the impact of open plan offices seems to point to a pretty hefty list of drawbacks for staff.
Getting the best working environment needs careful thought. Helpfully, there are plenty of ideas on how to balance the competing needs of cost, flexibility, productivity and well-being. Companies like Herman Miller point to design principles such as:
– creating information and resource-rich spaces that get people thinking and help them follow up on ideas and conversations
– making sure sufficient quiet and private places are available
– allowing people more control of their environment, to adapt it to the work they’re doing as that changes over time.
Maybe you should let the different sorts of hedges grow a bit more where you work?
Tags: Design, thinking, working life
In 1513, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote his best-known work, Il Principe (The Prince), as advice to any in the ruling classes who wanted to gain or maintain power and also attain glory.
He describes what he has seen in his political life as the necessary things a prince must do – in essence combining the guile of the fox with the force of the lion.
Subsequently, the use of his name has had very negative connotations. Most people would not relish being called “Machiavellian”. But his thinking has been very influential in shaping our history – and in many good ways. It helped stimulate liberal political philosophy to advocate positive change for the citizen, promoted the supremacy of civil rather than religious or monarchical power and stressed the ideals of honesty, hard work and people’s responsibility to their communities. Like Kafka and Freud, the adjective derived from his name paints just a narrow idea of what he had to say. So his reputation is rather ill-deserved.
While The Prince is not meant to be a moral guide for the day-to-day living of the average Joe Bloggs, it nonetheless has ideas in it which we can all learn from. So, for example, he tells us that Fortune is the force that can always crush you. “Extremima malignita” or pure misfortune can be just around the corner. The results of the current economic conditions might feel like that to some. What seemed certain is no longer so.
How can you defend yourself against what might happen? Machiavelli says that you should try to “master Fortune”. To paraphrase, as they might say in the US, you should try to “get lucky”. How do you do that? You have to take action: “It is better to have acted and regretted than not to have acted and regretted”. In doing so, “Fortes fortuna adiuvat” – fortune favours the brave (here he borrows from Levy the Roman historian).
Maybe now is the time to act. What steps can you take?
Tags: behaviour, choices, leadership
Consultants are much in the news at the moment – and it’s not a good press they are receiving.
We define a consultant as someone who provides guidance and advice, often at a strategic level – in contrast to trainers, researchers, lawyers, facilitators, accountants.
A few have mentioned this early article of ours from 2006. In it, we share some lessons for a DIY approach to consulting.
Enjoy!
Tags: assumptions, facilitation, innovation, management
David Byrne of Talking Heads has become an unlikely advocate of PowerPoint as a creative tool for getting your ideas across.
Now established beyond the popular music world into writing, theatre and film, he also produces art with a .PPT file extension!
Having thought it a limited and ‘corporate’ tool to start with, experimentation has enabled him to create rich and interactive images.
So maybe it’s time to take a stand against the backlash on PowerPoint slideware (or Keynote or whatever) which has been going on for a couple of years at least.
Why do so many people rush to join the condemnation of an efficient tool for conveying complex ideas? Why not also have a backlash against the novel in book form? After all, that’s another highly formulaic medium where information is carried in a fundamentally limited way – using only the power of narrative – and it has many drawbacks.
There are rubbish novelists as well as great ones (try comparing Charles Dickens, Jackie Collins, Leo Tolstoy, Jody Picoult, Alasdair Gray, Tomas Hardy and Honore de Balzac).
As well as those who regularly bore or beffudle us with endless dreadful slides there are those who influence and inspire with pace and passion. TED.com and Pecha Kucha have plenty of examples and we all know people who are good (or even great) exponents of the medium.
Having the potential to use software (as with a pen or a paint brush) should be seen as a help not a hindrance. Like David Byrne, we should want to make the most of our chance to communicate with others and take the effort to produce great work.
Tags: art, communication, innovation
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