Category: Change

Posted on

Has science reached its limits of growth?

The science ecosystem has been restructured regularly during my career, and I often wonder to what effect.

Effective science, and effective research thrives when there is

  • social space for personal initiative and creativity,
  • time for ideas to grow to maturity,
  •  openness to debate and criticism,
  • hospitality towards innovation, and
  •  respect for specialized expertise.

I have regularly reflected on these words written by John Ziman 30 years ago, and on advice I received early in my management career – “you cannot, and should not try to manage the research – your job is to manage the environment in which you people do their science.”

I recently re-read ” Prometheus Bound: Science in a dynamic steady state” written in 1994 by Ziman, and was intrigued by how much the context in which science is conducted has changed in 30 years, yet the substance hasn’t. Continue reading “Has science reached its limits of growth?”

Posted on

Resilience is life-long learning – a lesson from Covid

Uncertainty is a commonly used word today.  Uncertainty creates stress – and the uncertainty in our private and work lives is escalated in a world being transformed by a pandemic that comes in waves. 

In this uncertain world, there is a lot of encouragement for us to develop a resilient mindset. It’s almost as if resilience is a silver bullet – something you can take to get you through the hardships. However, I have observed a few things over the last week that have caused me to stop and think. We need to be realistic about resilience.  Many people are finding it tough. Here are a few thoughts.

It’s okay to acknowledge and say you are not coping.

Continue reading “Resilience is life-long learning – a lesson from Covid”
Posted on

Ten ways to kill innovation

Do you want change in your organisation, but it is not happening? You could be the problem. Here are some sure ways to stop innovation.

  1. Regard any new idea from below with suspicion – because it’s new, and because it’s from below
  2. Insist that people who need your approval to act first go through several other levels of management of get their signatures.
  3. Ask departments or individuals to challenge and criticize each other’s proposals.  (That saves you the job of deciding: you just pick the survivor).
  4. Express your criticisms freely, and withhold your praise.  (That keeps people on their toes).  Let them know they can be fired at any time.
  5. Treat identification of problems as signs of failure, to discourage people from letting you know when something in their area isn’t working.
  6. Control everything carefully.  Make sure people count anything that can be counted, frequently .
  7. Make decisions to reorganize or change policies in secret and spring them on people unexpectedly.  (That also keeps people on their toes).
  8. Make sure that requests for information are fully justified, and make sure that it is not given out to managers freely.  (You don’t want data to fall into the wrong hands).
  9. Assign to lower-level managers, in the name of delegation and participation, responsibility for figuring out how to cut back, lay off, move people around, or otherwise implement threatening decisions you have made.   And get them to do it quickly.
  10. And above all, never forget that you, the higher-ups, already know everything important about this business.

From:  R. Moss Kanter, The Change Masters, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1983.

Posted on

The 100% rule for business success

you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Ideas only having power if you use them or share them. 

Inc. Magazine has a nice article entitled why “idea” should be a verb written by Jeff Haden.

He says: Every day, would-be entrepreneurs let hesitation and uncertainty stop them from acting on an idea. Fear of the unknown and fear of failure are what stopped me, and may be what stops you, too.To which I would add, it’s not just the entrepreneurs.

The final sentence in the article says it all:  You certainly won’t get it right all the time, but if you let “idea” stay a noun, you will always get it wrong.

It reminds me of Wayne Gretzky reflecting on why he was so successful as an ice hockey player:  you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Haden’s advice:  try trusting your analysis, your judgement, and even your instincts a little more.

And then – take the shot!