Practice Notes

Welcome to the April Practice Notes

New member of our team

We welcome Marie Kiely on board. She’s an experienced facilitator and leader in the public sector. Marie’s got specific expertise in change management, strategy and communications.

 

What's new in the world?

Learning from failure in uncertain environments

Today, even more than usual, if businesses and public sector organisations are to stay relevant, they need to innovate.

But that also means accepting failure. In an uncertain and volatile world, avoiding failure is not an option. But how should organisations regard failure? April 2011’s Harvard Business Review is completely devoted to failure. In it, Columbia Business School's Professor Rita McGrath puts forward seven principles about how to learn from the inevitable errors that result from failures.

Here they are:

1. Decide what success or failure would look like before you launch an initiative.

2. Convert assumptions into knowledge, ie, challenge assumptions. Your initial assumptions may well be incorrect.

3. Fail fast: test elements of your innovation early on.

4. Contain the downside risk — fail cheaply. Test a small-scale prototype.

5. Limit the uncertainty. Keep a good track of projects and pull the plug when they go off track.

6. Build a culture that celebrates intelligent failure. That means encouraging innovation and

failure, but making sure people have learned from the mistakes.

7. Codify and share what you learn: make this an everyday part of your culture and organisation.

 

Improve your energy at work

We recommend you check out:

http://www.theenergyproject.com/tips?utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=newsletter0211

It’s a simple, but valuable, tool to help you manage your emotional, physical, spiritual and mental energy at work. You can decide which of these four is more important to you and then get detailed advice.

For example, if you want detailed advice on increasing your emotional energy, you will be advised, among other things, to show more appreciation. And you’ll get the following specific advice:

We’re far quicker to notice what’s wrong than to celebrate what’s right in others. It takes five positive comments to offset the impact of a single negative one. Write a note of appreciation once a week to someone in your life and send it by snail mail. Small gestures go a long way. Studies show that even a small gift to medical residents improved the speed and accuracy of their diagnoses.

You’ll also be able to access a comprehensive book list.

We have always liked the Energy Project and reckon this is a great resource.