Why AI might fail you
Lots of people, and organisations, are looking to AI to give them a productivity boost. Of course it might do so by improving the speed, accuracy or value of specific processes or transactions. However, those
Get Readt for the Future
The exhortation above is not meant for my 'normal' readers (assuming some of you are normal) but for the politicians who face some big choices and decisions over the next few years. We have heard
Try Harder
Many years ago when at business school, I studied a case study of Avis (the car rental company) and how they had grown rapidly to boom Number 2 in the business.The key to their success seemed
AI Can Lie
We've seen reports that AI systems can 'hallucinate' at times …. they throw up information which they have generated rather than reported, and sometimes the generation is a little strange. Now it may not surprise
Don’e Search for Excuses, Look for Solutions
Too many people, when asked about their performance - or lack of it - settle back on a range of excuses. "I don't have the right tools or equipment" "The stuff I get from my
An exercise in improving personal productivity
Many of use exercise on a fairly regular basis - perhaps weekly or even daily. We know this makes us feel better. What we have not perhaps understood until recent times is the improvement in mental
Will AI reduce the bureaucratic burden?
Over the last several decades society - and work - have become more complex, more complicated - with vast increases in rules, regulations and associated bureaucracy. This has created entire layers of employment focused on
What Are Your Employees Doing?
This question is easy to answer if you manage a factory or other work involving physical effort. You see items coming off the production line, being modified in some way. beingg painted or whatever. But
AI Improves Productivity – or Does It?
There seems to be two major views about the impact of the increasing use of AI on the productivity of organisations. One school of thought suggests that AI can streamline processes and systems, enhance knowledge
What Are We Missing?
We all know that productivity growth has slowed over the last decade. There have been numerous shocks to the global economy and trading system - the biggest being the financial crisis and the COVID epidemic
No More Typing
It always seemed odd to me when many managers lost their secretaries and took over their own typing - simply because word processing had been invented. Most also organised their own diaries, scheduled their own meetings
Its A Mess
Politicians in the UK have been going on about 'growth' for some time now. All major political parties have 'growth on their agenda and claim that they are the party that can deliver this growth.
Inspiring Others
Leadership is a difficult concept to 'bottle'. I have studied leadership theory and even contributed a little to it. Yet I would have trouble boiling the concept down to a couple of sentences - to go in
Heed the Lessons from other Sectors
It is amazing how so many sectors fail to observe, and adopt (or adapt) successful moves in other sectors. One of the most successful innovations (and productivity improvement moves) of my lifetime is the introduction of
Youn Need Soft Skills
I've spent a lot of my life helping individuals and organisations acquire the skills needed to help improve productivity. In doing so, I have observed that it is often HOW changes are implemented that determines their effectiveness
What Should You Be Doing?
Most people find, or think, they have too much to do. Naturally, they try and concentrate on those things that they consider to be the most important. However even this can be fraught with difficulty. If
Productivity is Not about Cost-Cutting
Many people (even quite a lot of managers and directors) think that productivity improvement involves cutting costs. It can - and certainly cutting costs should improve productivity. However this should not form the basis of a productivity
Diagnosis can be confusing
I read a lot of papers and articles about productivity - or more usually, about the lack of productivity. Most Western nations have had little productivity growth over the last few years. Many of these
The debate continues on WFH
There has been much debate over the relative productivity effects of working from home (WFH) versus office-based versus hybrid working. Companies who sought to reduce property expenses by switching to WFH have generally been disappointed by
Its Not Better – or More – HRM you need
A recent article on the Gartner website suggested that with other approaches not producing effective results, what the business world needs is better human resource management to improve labour productivity. I couldn't agree less. I've
Bring People Together
We know that innovation often arises from an odd or unexpected coming together of people with disparate skills, different attitudes, different knowledge sets and perhaps different attitudes. There are even innovation approaches and techniques that aim
Doomed to be Disappointed
I was reading some research recently which suggested that managers and employees have quite different assessments of how much time might be saved by the introduction of AI to an organisation, with managers expecting significantly
Talk To Me!
Do you spend a lot of trime reading- and writing - emails? Are you an avid user of Slack or What's App? Many people do / are. Well, perhaps you need to rethink your approach to
Reflections
Now is the time to reflect on the last year. What went well? What went badly? What have you learned? What should you have learned? What new skills have you developed? If you are not