Bring People Together

We know that innovation often arises from an odd or unexpected coming together of people with disparate skills, different attitudes, different knowledge sets and perhaps different attitudes.  There are even innovation approaches and techniques that aim to simulate (or stimulate) these 'comings together' amongst individuals.

Yet over the last few years we have allowed workers to choose to work from home where such comings together are impossible. 

The water cooler, the kettle, the snack machine are places where people gather (informally, yes and for a short time) but brief interchanges of information, progress reports, ideas, even complaints can get others thinking.

When would you not encourage (or even insist on) people coming back to the office to make these interchanges possible once more.   It may not give you immediate revolutionary innovation but it almost certainly does no harm - and it does help employees engage with their colleagues and with the organisation.

You might even think of new ways of creating interaction and idea-generation and use this as an attraction to entice people back to the office.

Doomed to be Disappointed

 I was reading some research recently which suggested that managers and employees have quite different assessments of how much time might be saved by the introduction of AI to an organisation, with managers expecting significantly larger productivity gains.

This may not be surprising but it is important.  It means that employees are more wary about AI and managers are much more likely to be disappointed by those gains if they fall short of their expectations.

Of course it is difficult to make the assessment in the first place since the largest source of information is the publicity and 'information' put about by the companies selling AI models and services.

It seems as though managers need to question this information more thoroughly and ask for information (and results) that are set in their particular situation and context.

This has always been true - and the lack of such research and questioning is why so many 'snake oil salesmen' and consultants make a lot of money whilst often disappointing their clients.

You have been warned!

Talk To Me!

Do you spend a lot of trime reading- and writing - emails? Are you an avid user of Slack or What's App?   Many people do / are.

Well, perhaps you need to rethink your approach to communications.

Why not talk to people.

Generally, face-to-face, or at least synchronous, communication is better for complex and important matters.  It is easier to read body language and other signs so you can recognise your message has been understood  It allows the recipient to ask questions and seek clarifications .It allows further expansion on a topic and genrally is more efficient.

Email is still very useful - especially for circulating information to a group - but tends to lead to information overload as people send copies to people who do not need the communication.

So, in 2026, plan your communication media/methods for maximum effect.

Happy New Year!

Reflections

Now is the time to reflect ont he last year.  What went well?  What went badly? What have you learned?  What should you have learned?  What new skills have you developed?

If you are not happy with your answers, you need to try harder in 2026.

You have to do better.  If you are in any position of authority, you also need to help your team do better.

You can't expect others to improve if you, yourself, do not.

So take s little time out of this festive week to think about your oswn immediate past and to plan your changes for the coming year.

Its a small investment for what ould be be significant gain.

Making It Big!

It is often said- probably because it is true - that small businesses are the bedrock of a healthy  economy. Business leaders know this; even leaders of large businesses, for their businesses were small once.

One assumes that political leaders also know this - for they are reminded of it regularly when discussing growth strategies.  Yet politicians seem to have difficulty in accepting or understanding this simple fact.

Few of them seem to act as if they are keen to help small businesses grow.  They (SMEs) are more commonly seen as a source of tax revenue rather than as the source of economic growth.  Too many are stifled or strangled st birth or in their first few, dangerous years.

Of course we hear about the rare, immediate successes -tech-related  and tech-supporting businesses for the most part.  But these are very much the exceptions which prove the rule. 

So come on politicians, Help small businesses start and then help them grow - or at the very least, stop undermining that growth.  It’s your future, and the future well-being of your citizens that are at stake. 

We need you to think, and act, positively.

I. Give In

I've been using AI systems for a while now.  I mainly use Chat GPT but I have tried a few others to see how they compare.  My executive summary is that particular systems may be better at specific tasks but ChatGPT is the best all-rounder.

However, these systems are not perfect.  I have had problems with ChatGPT failing to start handling a query when I hit 'Go'.  When I subsequently get fed up of waiting and complain to ChatGPT about the lack of progress, ChatGPT either apologises or replays my prompt back to me to confirm my request and parameter choice.  If I had not responded, ChatGPT would have done nothing.  On some systems I have had problems with the system seemingly not able to meet my needs giving me a 'substitute answer' or 'holding answer'. 

I realise that the level of 'intelligence' in an LLM-based system is not high (though they are adept at handling and presenting knowledge) so I do not expect perfection. 

But when s system (or a person) cannot meet my request for completion of a task, I expect to be told so I can make other arrangements.

So, AI, if you cannot meet my request within an acceptable timeframe, just stay "I give up" and we can both move on

Like Me

There has been a tendency since forever for companies to hire new people that are like the existing people.  This results partly from both conscious and unconscious bias but also from a 'reasoned' argument that like people will get on better so the new staff will not disrupt existing relationships snd cultures.

This is still taking place in an era where the DEI movement has never been stronger - and where most senior managers and execs have had unconscious bias training. - and would probably profess their support for increasing diversity.

I remember many years ago when studying innovation being told that: 

If you have an engineering problem and you ask an engineer to solve it, you should get a competent solution.  If you ask non-engineers to solve it, you might get an innovative solution idea which can be made to work by an engineer.

So, diversity can bring different strengths to play on problems and issues, and help you relate to different segments of the market.

So look around your organisation - and especially at new hires. Are they all out of the same mould?  If so, you might be missing out on a variety of views that could increase your capacity to innovate, grow and develop.