Technology has been a significant driver of enhanced productivity over the last several decades. Now many are predicting that AI will be the next major revolution. However, the current crop of digital tools (including AI) is, by and large, aimed at backroom tasks and personnel. Front line workers are certainly less well-served, even in service industries. This
Most people - including me - would answer immediately - and say ‘No’. However, things are not so simple. Think of recent large-scale innovation changes. Nuclear power for example. Or space exploration. Such massive innovations could not have happened without large-scale investment (and planning and coordination) from governments. Other innovations cannot be fully diffused into markets without
Many people like to listen to music while they work on their computer or carry out other individual tasks. Music can drown out the sounds of the task itself or the sounds of colleagues - especially when working in an open plan office. Others think music is a distracting influence and prefer to work in
Most business people are aware that failure can be a useful learning process - allowing those who are part of the failure to learn lessons about what went wrong and/or where they could have improved their performance … and especially where they lack specific skills and experience. Now this ‘principle’ is being taken further by setting
The NHS (National Health Service) in the UK is regarded by many British people as ‘the jewel in the crown’ - by far the most important public service. Over the last decade, though, there has been increasing disappointment with the state of the service - with the COVID pandemic putting a large nail in the coffin. Though
Sometimes when looking at problems or searching for innovation, it is a handicap to have too much knowledge of the context of the problem. For example, if you give the problem of spanning a river to a bridge-builder, you will get a bridge as the solution. It might be a great-looking bridge and/or one with little
When firms are looking at automation (or AI) to find other ways of changing and improving what they do), the approach should always be to look at what you do now and how you do it. You can then automate an already-improved version of your processes and working methods. Those who don’t do this end
Most of us have been in a situation at work where rules have been enforced which are clearly stupid to anyone with common sense. If you doubt this, you need to read ‘Dilbert’ more. Do you want your employees to obey rules which, to them, are ridiculous …. or do you want them to challenge those
Occasionally we see an organisation that has pulled itself back from the brink of extinction. There are two main routes to such survival - one is to find a different product/service (product innovation) ; the other is to drastically change how you do things, reducing time/costs of production/delivery (process innovation). (Doing different things and doing things
Too many executive teams are focused on this quarter’s results - the results that will be pored over by stakeholders and analysts, eager for some sign of development, of improving fortunes, of higher profit potential. The problem is that this narrow, short-term view tends to drive out the longer-term thinking that true strategic planning needs.