I read this tweet this week and instantly felt torn. I agree — but also see most managers in Government trapped between a rock and a hard place. Let me explain.
Read MoreHere’s an unordered list of things I’ve learned on the job. You’ll probably learn more about me than you really want to here…
Read MoreHewlett Packard once conducted a study that concluded that women only apply for a job when they meet 100% of the criteria for it, though men will put their applications in at just 60%. Numerous studies have confirmed that pattern since.
Read MoreFew things, if any, are worth sacrificing your health for, even if only in the short-term. You need to decide — in terms of time and brainspace — how much you’re willing to give without sacrificing your wellbeing. And design your diary around it.
Read MoreIt takes a great deal of effort and commitment to embed and sustain accessibility in organisations. I know every organisation has to start somewhere, but if you’re going to start with a single junior staff member then you really are taking the long-way-round.
Read MoreThousands of tiny decisions made within your organisation affect equity and inclusion for your staff, your partners, your users. No single person or team can be responsible for making sure those decisions help rather than harm.
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I’ve been coaching on and off since I got accredited back in 2007. In that time, one of my favourite coaching exercises to run has been the “future retrospective”.
Read MoreTo regain control of your diary you need confident awareness of your own priorities and objectives. Empowered with that clarity, you can make active choices about how best to spend your time.
Read MoreIf you have certainty and predictability, don’t build a commodity product from scratch unless you have money you want to burn. If you are trying to deliver policy outcomes in a volatile, uncertain, complex or ambiguous context, you need to keep the cost of change low so that you can build to learn.
Read MoreI snorted cornflakes laughing at that doozy in my Twitter feed last week.
I have a chip on my shoulder about this stuff. I grew up in relative poverty. While at primary school my parents were so hard-up my Dad stole food to make sure we ate. We sofa-surfed and crashed with extended family until my parents were able to get a council house.
Read MoreWomen are far more often than men told that they need to make more of an impact in meetings.
Receiving this feedback is frustrating and often unfair - but that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it.
Women deserve to be heard.
Read MoreThe idealism that slowly drained from me over my long civil service career has been replaced with the contagious optimism of the slow revolution driven by communities working in new ways in government.
Read MoreFor strategic, systems and service design at least, design backgrounds are over-rated. If you insist on recruiting only “talent” with such backgrounds, you will dramatically reduce your chances of finding candidates with the skills required design and deliver change. And isn’t that what these disciplines are about?
Read MoreDigital sucks. As a word, it means too many different things to too many people.
Unless you know which “digital” a person is referring to, it is difficult to have a productive conversation about it. And it’s darned foolish to commit to delivering it.
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