Archive
what’s in a name?
A recent high profile re-brand has caused a bit of a flutter in the industry concerned, so with people talking about it, it must have worked, yes? Read more…
ThatConsultantBloke’s Quick Guides
A few months back I recommended some text books to a group that I was helping with their professional development. They considered what I had suggested, but felt that they already had too many text books and what they really wanted was a quick guide that they could have in e-book format on their ‘phone or tablet. Read more…
we need long term thinking, not short term populism
At a seminar last week one of my fellow speakers explained to the audience the true state of our energy production which brought into sharp focus the empty promises that one of our political leaders, and I use that term loosely here, had made a couple of day earlier. Now this is not an attack on any one party, but it is one on the premise that people can really be led by populist talk. Read more…
the obscure art of decision making
This week I wrote about planning; you can read that soon, but in doing so I covered the art of decision making and that is what this week’s Monday Musing is all about. You’ll know the old joke about “I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not sure”. Decision making is easy, so why do we make such a meal of it? Read more…
business cycles are a just a natural progression
I wrote some lines a few weeks ago about the classic business cycle whereby today’s fad is tomorrow’s derided practice and next year’s next big thing, albeit that in the latter case it will be re-branded to make it new and exciting even if it is pretty much exactly what we used to do. What goes around comes around as my American friends say. Having been asked the same question again last week gives me chance to expand on this a little. Read more…
Investing in the future is essential
Various factors may have contributed to the decline of our manufacturing capacity, but there are significant elements of the infrastructure that existed to support it still in place and one of these has been providing me with a fair bit of travel recently. Read more…
musings on the fire drill and other emergency procedures
For much of my working life before getting involved in Facilities Management the fire drill was the province of HR, or Personnel as we used to call them and at more than one location there was a delight in picking a wet day for the practice. Because they always had the drills in the same weeks every year, and always in the gap between morning tea break and lunch, the old sweats could usually work out when the drill would be from the weather forecast. Someone based near HR would be watching for the tell-tale signs of activity. As soon as HR were seen to be assembling with clip boards, macs and brollies the word would go around and people would be ready for the bell; after all, the quicker they were out the quicker they could be back in again, but whilst some very good evacuation times (as I would later come to know) were being recorded HR would always moan drainishly about everyone having apparently stopped to put their coats on before leaving the building; somehow it never occurred to them that we were ready and waiting for the bell. Read more…
Risk registers and contingency plans; how robust are yours?
Risk management has been very prominent for me over the last week. Meetings on the topic have led to a commission to deliver a risk management seminar early next year and I will be running a risk management course on the day you read this, so that alone should have been enough for me, but the fates had other ideas in store. Read more…
it’s not the third place; it’s an alternative second place at least, but maybe we should call it the fourth place?
Have we established the Fourth Place? A few weeks ago I mused here about developing the Second Place and commented about the hi-jacking of Ray Oldenburg’s well established Third Place for other purposes. This debate flared up again on Twitter at the end of last week where, under the hash tag #worktech, there was more discussion about misuse of both the term and the location. Read more…
Never mind apportioning blame; just sort it out
Over recent years there seems to have developed a huge blame culture; it’s always someone else’s fault when things go wrong and the desire to point fingers is very strong. When you look at cases such as the Olympic security or West Coast Main Line contracts we can all see that there have been apparent failures, but try to cut through all of the media and political rhetoric and what do you actually have? Read more…
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the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke 