People seem to like to claim that important historical figures are on their side. One example is the way people will argue about whether Charles Darwin believed in God. The example I want to explore here is the “father of modern economics” Adam Smith. I believe in business, in the sense that I see that trading is a way of creating wealth. This is one of Scotsman Adam Smith’s precepts.    more »

I’ve been impressed by a recent article in the magazine Engineering & Technology (5th May). It’s an extract by Steve Carter from his book “Road to Audacity.” He is a psychologist, fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, and makes three fascinating points about handling change, which seem to me to be a good framework and to apply more widely than just the present recession. Here’s my summary paraphrase.

BURNING PLATFORM
Things never stay as they are, so we need to be as attached to the present as we would want to be to a building that is on fire! Leaders must not offer false comfort, but be honest about what is happening now. We need to be in fully in touch with reality, and this includes listening to our staff.

A MOTIVATIONALLY RICH VISION
So where to jump to? We can’t stay where we are; motivating people to avoid something does not work; and anyway if we avoid reality things may get worse not get better! We need to have prominently in front of us in our mind that which we are seeking to build. Know what you want to become, and be passionate about it.

A SMALL MANAGEABLE WORLD
If the vision, the desired change, seems to be too distant, people feel not motivated but powerless. Therefore there needs to be a focus on small steps, that is realistic goals in areas that people can make an impact (compare Stephen Covey's "Circle of Influence"). People need to be clear about how they can contribute. So the leader’s task is to present the reality, the vision, and also the plan for this leg of the journey.

Text of article here

Steve's profile at Apter International here

Philip Whyte, a guest columnist in the Times, is seeking to lay to rest the myth that Britain's manufacturing base has shrunk. This interests me because with an engineering background I enjoy manuafacturing, and also because recent "Credit Crunch" events should discourage us from being overly reliant on the finance sector.

He writes that manufacturing in Britain forms a larger proportion of GDP than in France of the USA, and that - before the recent recession - our industrial output was higher than ever. So, our industry has grown, but services have grown more, he writes.

Original article here.

Source: The Week, 21st March 2009.

I'm pleased to have completed my courses in Spiritual Direction and coaching. The two have fed one another, and I feel more equipped for the work that I am doing.

Starting a new business continues to challenge emotionally, as I need to persevere with what I believe are the right things for some while before seeing results - months rather than days!

I'm very much enjoying the Change Leadership and Coaching Course that I am doing with the Wilsher Group in Corsham.

It is an eight day course and I have just completed the second set of three days, and there are two more to go.

There is a great balance of theory and practice, to further develop coaching skills. I am also enjoying the content on the ways people learn, which has been a gap in my previous studying.

This is a fascinating little book that looks at working as a consultant in an almost spiritual kind of way. How do you thrive as a consultant, contribute to the world, make friends, and become the person you want to be?   more »

Just been reading through friends' blogs. I have long understood that much of the way that we respond to any change comes back to the grief process (shock, numbness, guilt, blame, anger, depression (and so on, not in order) through to some kind of "integration" - that is a new understanding of what is going on). This often takes several years. This understanding was developed by Dr Colin Murray Parkes in the 1970's.

So this entry by Mark Berry, about the application of all of this to change in organisations - and "chaos in religious life" in particular - is fascinating.

Gerald Arbuckles "From Chaos to Mission - Refounding Religious Life Formation" (1996)

Two good quotes in today's The Week. The first seems to follow the pragmatism of my post about Florence Nightingale.

"The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it." Robert Peel, quoted in The Independent.

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." Soren Kierkegaard, quoted in The Guardian.

The other day I turned on the radio while I was driving, and found myself listening to a programme on BBC Radio 4. It was about Florence Nightingale's work on hospital design in the 19th Century.

Her first principle was that hospitals "should do the sick no harm."

That's a good lesson to remember, and particularly important for organisations seeking to provide some kind of care for people. Today some people are worried about going into hospitals in Britain because they may catch a "superbug" (such as MRSA); and the government has just published statistics on death rates in hospitals. Organisations are encouraged to do risk assessment, but that is not the same.

When starting some new venture I tend, in a visionary kind of way, to think of all the good that I want to come out of it. Maybe I should spend more time thinking about how to avoid doing people harm at the same time!

Conversations that I have been having in connection with my search for work have reminded me of my interest, and skill, in strategic marketing.

Marketing is defined as matching the resources of the organisation with the needs (or "wants") of the customer. This is what I had practised in my industrial career, and the question of how to match organisational resources and customer needs is foundational to business strategy.

What puzzles me is that in the charitable sector marketing seems to be used in a much-diminished way: not referring to business strategy but to particular communication activities such as "marketing campaigns" (which the industrialist would probably call advertising, or publicity, or mail-shots).

I think, sadly, that such misuse of the word marketing contributes - in some not-for-profit organisations - to a real lack of strategic thinking about how to match creatively the resources of the organisation, which include its supporters, with the needs of its beneficiaries.