Stuart Reid Consulting - Latest Comments

Re: Small Change

Anthony Bullen — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 04:22:41 -0000

Intriguing article Stuart! Thanks for food for thought.

Re: Small change

Stuart Reid — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 04:47:23 -0000

Hi Majken! How lovely - you needed something and the universe delivered :-) Glad it was helpful. And I hope you really enjoy 'Switch' - it is easily the best business book I have read in the past six months.

If you don't want to miss my next post, do please subscribe via the box on the top right of my website - I wouldn't want you to miss out!

Re: Small change

Majken — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 17:00:36 -0000

How interesting. This is just what I needed right now. Thanks! I'm facilitating a workshop for 40 leaders in August to help them work through and discuss their experience and knowledge around the topic of change and your focus on Small Change is inspiring. We tend to overcomplicate things. Sometimes small is beautiful. I just ordered "Switch" from Amazon. Keep up the good work, Stuart!

Re: Small change

Stuart Reid — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 16:05:07 -0000

Hi Bob! Thanks for that.

I'm sure you're right - that there are other aspects of change. I just wanted to pick out one aspect of change that has really interested me recently - the idea of taking small steps.

The best book I've read lately is 'Switch' (I mentioned it in the post). That has more to say, including about some of the things that you mention as well. Some of the aspects of change you point to are about the state that a person needs to be in in order to take those small steps - they may need to be insightful, prepared, motivated etc.

Whatever the next post is about it will be on some aspect of change. And I'll publish it when I've done enough of those one-minute bursts. I think it's likely to be much less than a year this time... :-)

Re: Small change

Bob Gore — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 15:57:27 -0000

I think this is very true, but is so obvious and so simple that we (I) forget and overcomplicate things. Taking continued and sustained action in the form of baby steps leads to successful achievement or change. But I think this can overlook some other aspects of change. New action often needs new ideas and approaches . This requires a degree of insightful perception , preparedness and readiness for change equipped with motivation and an overall worthwhile realistic objective to aim for. Given these precursors the "small steps " for change works.

Well done on the post, it got me thinking!! When's the next one?

Re: Change in organisations

David — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 07:09:26 -0000

Steve...I also teach the Navigating Mind as an essential part of Leadership DNA. This assumes that "a mistake is a Great Moment" because it is only when we notice that we are off course, that we able to recalibrate and reset the course. 747's in flight are off course about 98% of the time. It is the constant recalibration that occurs between the plane and the destination tower that allows the plane to arrive where it intends to land. The question "where are we now" paired with "where do we want to be" is the Navigating Mantra. Lucky are those who learn from a leader who has mastered this mindset. In tandem with this is the Systemic Mindset which always looks to the system first to find the problem and to the person last. Conscious leadership is rare and it can be learned. My commitment is that one day, the Machine Model will be placed where it really belongs, in the Museum of Archaic Outdated Beliefs.

Re: Change in organisations

David — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 06:58:03 -0000

"Thought workers cannot be managed. They can only be led."
Peter Drucker

Until leaders understand the meaning of "enrollment" and develop their skills in building rapport with their people, the Machine Model will continue to be practiced, even though it doesn't actually work. It's what people have learned from their leaders and they just copy it because its all they know. These leadership skill are the "soft skills" that can cut diamonds.

Re: Change in organisations

David — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 06:54:05 -0000

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Re: Change in organisations

Steve Chapman — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 07:06:15 -0000

Hi Stuart. A nice post and you aren't the only one wrestling with this question so take some comfort in that! :-) Here's my 2p worth on the subject...

As you know, I hold the perspective that organisations are social processes - simply a bunch of people engaged in a rather complex process of relating to each other that is inherently as unpredictable as it is predictable. It is the same process (and we are the same species) when we interact in say a pub, a football match, a party or a crowded high street - however there is something about going through the office doors or the factory gates that makes it difficult, scary or threatening to acknowledge this and work with it and we crave order, control and predictability.

A start point for me is to notice where we (ourselves and our clients) 'split' things to make it all more convenient (e.g. Machine versus Social perspective). Splitting always seems to me to be unhelpful and is often why our different perspectives get rejected so I always try to hold a number of paradoxical perspectives as true at the same time when talking to clients. This means that I'm never saying 'your machine perspective is flawed and grounded in the industrial revolution so isn't exactly cutting edge' (although I may sometimes think this) it means that I can engage then in a conversation to explore where an overly structured, ordered and controlling approach may unintentionally inhibit change in what is essentially a social system. It is about pacing and leading from their current perspective. This leads to small nudges or experiments. This leads to change in language from what we will do to what we might do and how we will know about and respond to the currently unknown.

I normally associate the machine metaphor you refer to with things like strategies, org charts, lean six sigma, agendas, change plans (etc) AND I am an advocate of all of these as being of great value to business - I have trained in these processes and it is important for me to keep up to date with the latest thinking. However, as a complexity-oriented consultant, I like to refer to these as 'navigation aids' to help us steer the most helpful path through something that is inherently messy and unpredictable. I often use the metaphor of sailing the English Channel. We have a boat, compass, GPS, shipping charts, masts, sails, rudder, weather forecast - all navigation aids to get us from Dover to Calais. However, it is our moment-by-moment improvisation, small nudges, adjustments to the unpredictable that make us good sailors and get us to France - blindly following our charted course would lead to disaster.

I believe it is important spending time developing one's navigation aids in organisational change but it very shortsighted to believe that the map is the territory. As to the question of remotely driven top-down change headed up by a group of leaders, the only way they will be able to respond is to find ways of getting up close to what is actually going on rather than what is supposed to be going on. (Using the English Channel analogy, they will need to be on deck rather than down in the cabin). I remember Rob Poynton once saying something along the lines of "The one way of guaranteeing getting caught out is to obsess about not to get caught out as you are never present to what is actually going on".

One thing that I notice a lot in leaders who are resistant to entertaining a different perspective is that they feel that they have to give up everything they have learnt and throw the baby out with the bath water. However, to be good at improvising and responding one simply has to learn a more artful way of bringing one's skills to bear in a way that the present moment calls for.

Am not sure if that helps or confuses the question - hopefully a bit of both. :-)

Steve

Re: Change in organisations

Bruce — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:20:28 -0000

Hi Stuart. I was really interested in your post. However I'm not sure I understand the distinction between the two alternatives. Surely the company strategy is the goal to be achieved, and the senior managers will influence their team to achieve those goals. Surely nobody expects success to be guaranteed for any meaningful objective.

Re: Istanbul workshop: Improvisation for facilitators

Stuart Reid — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 08:36:45 -0000

Hi Ruben - sorry you can't join us, but I can understand why! I'm enjoying your blog - caught up on some of your posts just the other day.

Stuart

Re: Istanbul workshop: Improvisation for facilitators

Ruben — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 08:26:05 -0000

Hi Stu,
Won't be there unfortunatetly. Can't make it because of my 2nd child being born just before... but wrote a nice blog on the topic http://rubenvanderlaan.com/...

Re: How amazing is your workplace?

Stuart Reid — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 05:32:16 -0000

Thanks for that Gillian. It's great to have my own attention re-directed to this post, because I can now see a couple of things that have slipped since I wrote it! For example, my physical in-tray is not yet empty (so I'll do some work on that today ;-)

I like your emphasis on colour - I make a lot of use of colour in my workshops, but I notice looking around me that my own workspace is a bit drab. It needs more red! I'll see what I can do about that too.

Re: How amazing is your workplace?

Gillian — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:02:32 -0000

Hi Stuart, This is a great post - I am just taking a break from a home office clean-up and enjoyed reading your more-structured approach to this. I started working from home 18 month ago and have been on an ongoing mission to make this a productive workspace.

I also use zero-in box to keep things from being overwhelming on email, and have just completed my annual sift of hanging files (otherwise they get so crowded that I cannot get anything new into the cabinet.) I just did that a few weeks ago and managed to recycle three carrier bags of papers. I took a good look at my workspace a few months ago and I decided to get it painted orange (to brighten it up - I am on the dark side of the house), and got a new desk chair also in orange. I need to work on the exercise side of things, I will let you be my inspiration for that! Good luck to all of us!

Re: Oh my god I’m going to die!

Stuart Reid — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 05:02:50 -0000

Thanks Debs. Steven Levine is new to me, so I'll follow up those recommendations. And your comment has made me look at my own post again, which is a good thing!

Stuart

Re: Oh my god I’m going to die!

Debs Henley — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 04:44:20 -0000

Stuart,

I love that you are exploring this.
It reminds me of Steven Levine's work. He wrote Who Dies? and A Year to Live.
As an oncologist, Levine had often had to give people a death sentence. He began to wonder how it would apply to him if he were given a year to live. His book 'A Year to Live' chronicles his experiences over the course of a year he lived as if it were his last.

Could be worth a read if you haven't already?

Here' his blog: http://dyingpractice.blogsp...

Re: How amazing is your workplace?

Stuart Reid — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 09:59:36 -0000

@Judith Milburn
Thanks Judith, and nice to see you here! I love spending time in those 'spaces in between' that you wrote about. And good luck with the hammering and dust creation!

Re: How amazing is your workplace?

Judith Milburn — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 04:31:47 -0000

Oh, and if I remember rightly, Andrew needs to be careful with the tea which has a higher caffeine content than coffee (or is that an urban myth?!)

Re: How amazing is your workplace?

Judith Milburn — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 04:30:48 -0000

That's a great model Stuart - and what's most impressive is that you not only thought of it, you then committed yourself to action and followed through!
I'm not at that stage yet unfortunately - but come the Spring my working environment will be a lot better (when the hammering and dust creation somewhere above my head comes to an end!) Therefore I find myself contemplating a different take on 'how' I work, ie what do I actually do, what is it like when I'm doing it. Some of the factors are time- and content-related, but there's also something about what I have always thought of as 'the spaces in between', ie time to absorb, digest, reflect on what has happened. I'm not as far along the road to articulating and acting on this as you are, but am watching this literal and metaphorical space!

Re: How amazing is your workplace?

Stuart Reid — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 04:03:45 -0000

Thanks Andrew! Hope that model works out for you.

Re: How amazing is your workplace?

Andrew Ball — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 03:18:19 -0000

Excellent Stuart - great 'thought for the day' and as someone who is seriously contemplating the self-employment home-based model from next Spring these sound like great tips. Except for me it'll have to be decent pot of tea - too much caffeine not good I'm afraid - so I'll have to think of a different solution to yours on the catering front!

Re: Job/career/purpose

Stuart Reid — Tue, 18 May 2010 04:09:43 -0000

Hi there - wow! Thanks for your feedback. I am really glad you liked the ideas in the video.

The internet is such an amazing human creation - I find inspiring ideas that other people have written about, and am able to pass them on to new people, and make connections between people who have never met in the offline world. It is really great.

Cheers,
Stuart

Re: Job/career/purpose

Tytti — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:29:41 -0000

Dear Stuart,

Thank you so much for posting that video! I really was impressed by the ideas he has - for getting the people (and animals!) involved, delivering messages in very different ways, being very creative - and "measuring" the result of sabbatical years (noticing that the origin of the next ideas have been in the sabbatical year)!

I really think you are also amazing with writing great blogs and delivering good links and ideas to other people. Thank you for that!

Tytti

Re: Caring

Stuart Reid — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:46:59 -0000

Thanks Steve. I have learned a lot from you, and look forward to learning even more! Hope to see you again face-to-face before too long.

Love,
Stuart

Re: Caring

Steve Hindmarsh — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:36:38 -0000

Hi Stuart
Thanks for the hat tip.
It reminds me of our the conversations we have had together and caring as a first step to allowing ourselves to be changed by the other.
Congrats on getting the site up, looks great.
Steve