Saturday, September 30, 2006

20 Year Complacency

I was preparing some materials for an event that I am speaking at next week (download the brochure here) and realised that we are possibly heading toward another period of complacency in the UK.

In the 1950's, there is a lot of historical evidence about the fact that UK industry were complacent about the impact that the rising quality and productivity of Japan would have on us and in the 1960's/70's it killed off our motorcycle industry (for all intents and purposes) and a lot of our electronics and automotive industry as well.

In the 1970's we were complacent about the Asian revolution, joking about the quality of what they were capable of and in the 1980's and 90's they stripped our manufacturing and are now advancing on our service industries.

In the 1990's we were complacent about the rise of China saying they would be become the 'low cost but low tech' outsourcing centre of the world and today they are encroaching upon our high tech industries and sectors.

As we move toward the 2010's, I am beginning to wonder whether we are facing another period of complacency in the UK....perhaps because of the impact of Eastern Europe, the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India & China) or even the Middle East or Africa - maybe it will not happen at all but history seems to be against us on that!

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Stress + Depressed = No Success

Individuals who are stressed under-perform - everyone knows that - hence the growth in stress coaches, but have you considered that organisational health and levels of stress also affect performance?

Organisations which are feeling the squeeze find it difficult to focus on the longer game and it permeates through to the individuals working in the organisation, which in terms affects their performance and hence the results achieved by the business.

This is not about 'benchmarking', but is purely a matter of fact that organisational stress is a real phenomena and has a major impact on the results achieved - any comments?

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Innovation?

I was invited to an 'Innovation Dinner' this week at which some 150 people had booked and paid to attend.

The dinner had a good keynote speaker, but the topic was less about Innovation and more about how they had grown their business from scratch.

The problem for me is that the whole affair seemed to be a 'ra ra' session about innovation without any practical advice or information for the participants - the typical 'Innovation: Its a good thing' type approach.

For many, Innovation means developing a new product, whilst others think of it as a new creative design for a brand, but if we take the government definition of Innovation it is about 'the exploitation of new ideas' - meaning that it is equally relevant to the improvement in a process as it is too the development of a completely new process.

To find out more, read my article on INNOVATION at Ezine Articles.

Changing Direction

I have decided to split my ramblings into two seperate blogs.

This one will change to be about the activities I am involved in, the people I have met and what I have heard, whilst my blog FLEXIBLEAN will evolve as the main site for comments on making change sustainable, flexible and high impact.

I hope you enjoy the journey!