Archive
getting facilities management out of the closet and into the mainstream
I am often asked what I miss most about no longer being an operational Facilities Manager, and I have a two part answer; on the up side I am glad I no longer have to put up with sitting at interminable meetings where the chair and many of the participants are ill prepared, but on the down side I miss making things happen. Read more…
the importance of being educated
I always find it sad when I hear people say that they’ve never used anything that they learned at school, because I have found what I learned in my school days to have been a help in so many ways. Read more…
with feet of clay it pays to tread carefully
I started this a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t quite finish and wrote a different Musing for that week, although it might have been quite prophetic given the news over the last week. I had been reading a few biographies and had been struck by one thread; whilst all of the people concerned have been highly regarded by some, or many, they have been flawed as individuals. Read more…
mid week musings around the water cooler @tomorrrowsfm
Check out my contribution to the Water Cooler debate in Tomorrow’s FM talking about London2012 and the G4S security provision controvesy.
unclutter your organisation
I wrote last week about supporting the front line, and the importance of having a focus on what you have to do to deliver what your customers need. As regular readers will know I have a strong dislike of process for the sake of it and a belief in concentrating on what you need to do and not allowing yourself to be distracted by nice to have fancies. Read more…
asset management; a hard lesson
Asset management is very much at the forefront of my thinking at the moment, and in a very personal sense. It was about 4 weeks ago that I took a long look in the mirror and decided that I needed to apply some first principles to my main asset; myself. Read more…
mid week musings on blogging and plans for this site
I am in the process of taking a look at how this blog should work and to reduce the amount of time that I spend each week on keeping this and its companion web site running smoothly. Read more…
just how well do you communicate with modern technology?
In recent years we have begun to rely on emails, voicemail and text messages as primary methods of communication as we seek that immediacy of communication. Like me you probably know people who run more than one mobile ‘phone (maybe you do yourself?) and can’t bear to be out of touch. We seem to have developed an insatiable appetite for instant contact, but without any thought of the consequences. Read more…
Weekend Musings on Change
It is a while now since Monday Musings settled into its current format and I would like to make some changes. As yet I’ve not entirely decided what these should be, but what follows is the way that I am thinking.
The 600 words every Monday at 0600 UTC was a challenge that I was happy to meet. Over the years that I have been hitting that target I have written in a variety of styles and on a range of topics. Musings was intended to be a vehicle for serious topics even if I do get them over with a periodic use of humour, but the 600 words once a week has become something of a constraint, or at least from time to time it has.
I will keep the Monday column going though, simply because it is a good discipline and one that I find very useful in terms of business writing. Six hundred words in a standard font and size is a single sheet of A4 paper, and being able to set out an idea on a single side of paper is something that anyone in business should be able to do.
But when I wrote I Don’t Have My Decision Making Trousers On, the old Musings posts that I incorporated into that book all benefitted from being re-written with the freedom of however many words it took. In some cases they were improved by condensing them, but in most cases they came out a little longer. The 600 limit also precludes some of the stories that I have wanted to tell and a few of those drafts that I had stored away found their way into “Trousers”.
So what I have in mind is to keep my 600 word format musings coming through on Mondays, but to be able to bring in anything else that crosses my mind as and when it does. That leads to the second change, and this is also something that I’ve not yet decided on, but I will change the name of the blog. Monday Musings was somewhat un-original; there are many blogs with that title, but so far every alternative that I can come up with is also either in use or too close to someone else’s pride and joy for me to want to muscle in.
The change of name will therefore come when I get that spark of inspiration to find a new name for it; there is no hurry.
So it is business as usual, but with a gradual change over the coming weeks. Thanks to all who read what I write here, and another thanks to those who leave a comment, Tweet the blog or talk to me about things that I have written when we run in to each other.
Weekend Musings on Ethics
The next Monday Musing will be somewhat harder hitting that some, but the whole issue of ethics in business and public life is something that I think we need to get a grip on, hence some of my blogs and more public writings around now.
When I was younger there was a value in public service and that was still very much in evidence when I first began to meet with government figures in 1983, but it seems that much of that has gone. The people who we elect are there to serve us, or at least the greater good and not themselves. If you look at the code of conduct for even the humblest of clubs or bodies there will be something there about conflicts of interest and the like, but so few seem to even pay this lip service.
And then there is the incompetence factor. We have elected officials from this government and its predecessor who have failed in their duties to the public and yet have the gall to shout and point fingers at business people. Ethics? Honour? Sense of duty? Character? I was brought up to believe that these were fundamentals; where did we lose sight of that?
I support this charity
British Blogs
the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke 