THE FRUITS OF RIOTOUS EXPERIMENTATION
Riot Pointers 18: How to avoid giving your colleagues the middle finger
We need to treat big problems as we hope our medical advisors treat us—-with a clear and agreed understanding of the problem at hand.
In this episode of Riot Point Radio you get the solution the palm of your hand.
How Jurgen used KAI to win friends, influence people and make some money.
Head Office wanted to constrain him, Covid was making internal communications difficult but by using KAI, Jurgen was able to make Head Office happy, employees feel involved and developed—-oh, and he made a whack of profit as a result
Riot Point Radio Ep 16: Isolation special. Can we talk business? Please.
What a mess this virus is creating.
Can’t go to work? Losing sales?
Can we use what’s going on to build a better business?
Yes we can.
Find out how, on this special, Isolation episode of Riot Point Radio.
new products From the Lab
The Riot Point Research scientists have been incredibly inventive in recent months. We have been trialling and refining a number of new products, and we are now ready to launch the first batch.
Spot talent with just two questions
All leaders know the distribution of talented high performers is not Gaussian but fractal. For every one Yehudi Menuhin violin virtuoso there are many, many string scratchers.
So how can you spot potential?
I use two heuristics
- Does s/he get the job done?
- Do the most talented workers in the organisation want to work for her/him?
Opportunities are not like London buses
I was reminded this weekend that opportunities are not like London buses.
You can’t deliberately miss one, confident that another is soon to follow.
When Opportunity knocks, you need to ask yourself one question:
"Does this Opportunity open more doors than it closes?"
How to remove the pain and add the profit into Employee Engagement
Executives tell me, in their more candid moments, that they doubt the value of the ‘employee engagement survey.’
They find it time-consuming and stressful, and most have all but given up on trying to calculate any return-on-investment. No wonder then such surveys have the reputation of being “all pain and no profit.”
So why bother? The answer lies in why we form organisations.
Can your team deliver innovation? Find out with my Christmas Gift to you.
Are you hop-skipping delightfully from one good idea to another but never getting things done? Or are you perfecting the present, making a great sailing ship while the rest of the world moves to steam?
I have seen businesses that are so innovative, nothing ever gets completed. They flounder as they flail excitedly from one awesome idea to another. They may not run out ideas, but do they do run out of cash.
Conversely, I have worked with highly adaptive organisations who grow, painstakingly, by tweaking past successes. They make few mistakes, but one day they end up with perfect sailing ship, while the rest of the world has moved to steam.
The Holy Grail is, of course, Delivered Innovation. This requires the best of both approaches but each extreme often sees the worst of each other thus making mutual collaboration difficult.
Leading people is labour intensive; popping the bubble of the 4-hour work week
The 4-hour work week might be attainable if you forward orders of vitamin shipments to a third-party, or have only one employee—you. But if you are dependent on people to collaborate effectively for achievement of goal, here's the wake-up call. It takes time. In fact, the better your team and the bigger the change, the more time it requires.
Leading people is labour intensive. It takes time and energy. It requires passion for that role. If you don't have the appetite, stay away from this buffet.
Fix the slow puncture: kill the chronic relationship
Coincident with the last piece extolling you to manage your health and avoid chronic conditions, the Guardian newspaper published the cost of chronic health care to the UK NHS (hat tip to Dr Paul Davies).
The data is sobering.
Managing your health: a 2014 resolution you can complete today
Happy New Year to you all.
By the end of February, most of the resolutions taken yesterday (learn a new language, spend more time with the family, lose weight) will lie disassembled on the floor, like a broken Lego model given at Christmas.
The challenge of Resolutions is to break down their contributing elements into behavioural habits, and without the vitamins of resolve and planning, this seldom occurs.
But there is something you can accomplish today.
Which is greater? Passion to win—or desire not to lose?
You are offered a gamble on the toss of a coin.
If the coin shows tails you lose $100
If the coin shows heads you win $120
Is the gamble attractive? Would you take it?
Your answer gives powerful insight in how best to manage organisational change.