Dissing the new

In the area of 'new ways of working' there are opportunities to, you know, try new things. New ways of doing things are happening the world over, across diverse sectors and deep into different domains and areas of expertise.

So there is new. There are opportunities to look, learn and try out the new.

How wonderful!

It’s perplexing when of course some people - no, not you - but some people, dismiss the new.

They dis the new. They bag it, disrespect it, criticize it and claim it’s not for them. But it’s new! How can you dis it if you haven’t even tried it?

Ok, then if you have tried it or have done it, you have incredible experience and insight to offer. And it’s a shame and a waste when that experience isn’t invited, acknowledged, listened to or leveraged in organisations. Our experience gets dissed.

Looking ahead, will you dive in and try the new or will you stand back and dis the new?

How can we adapt to newer ways of thinking and working if we're too busy dissing?

The cost of distraction

Checking your phone during a meeting is a productivity, focus and attention killer.

We think we can be present in the meeting AND scroll, check and read … but no.

Our IQ drops and we develop ‘attentional blindness’.

We lose the ability to judge what information is valuable or important. It’s probably why we think some speakers deliver boring segments, meetings have boring parts or workshops have boring sections. But shock, horror… it may not be boring it all!

It’s possible our ability to make sense has been interrupted. What others deem important ...we don’t. Then it switches over; they check their phone and get distracted, and we’re paying attention. We notice the important things; they don’t.

Whenever you’re trying to get ‘alignment’ or make sure everyone is ‘on the same page’, make a point of having mobile devices out of sight.

Focus, attention, IQ and cognition will be better, stronger and the work will be achieved quicker.

If you're going to check anything, check who’s distracted and who’s focused on the work at hand. 

New ways of working: what to do with those insights and ideas

New ways of working: what to do with those insights and ideas.

✅ Customer insights are on hand.

✅ Ideas have been generated. It's time to do something, to get into action with your good work.

Too often we think we need to find out more, keep working on something, finding out more more more. This is known as 'maximising', and it's not a good thing. It's linked to perfectionism, so no, not good. Rather, put those ideas out there and IMPLEMENT something; an experiment, a test, a pilot.

See if something you've thought of has value for your customers. Experiment and watch what happens. Once the experiment is done, take those insights and ITERATE; improve on your idea and go again with another experiment.

✅ There are plenty of customer needs.

✅ We have endless ideas.

New ways of working are focused on delivering value to customers, sooner. What counts is trying things out; not delaying or getting distracted.

To do this we need to:

1️⃣ Involve customers

2️⃣ Ideate possible solutions

3️⃣ Implement tests and experiments

4️⃣ Iterate and improve on the solutions.

What project you could apply this way of working to? 

New ways of working: let's 'ideate' and come up with ideas

New ways of working: let's 'ideate' and come up with ideas. Creativity is a must, a survival skill says the World Economic Forum, the Institute for the Future and other predictors of skills for the brutal future.

Celebrate this skill of human ingenuity we have, to make up stuff that solves tricky problems. Our customers need us to do this.

We gained insights from the INVOLVE stage (see yesterday's post) so it's time to come up with ideas about the insights. Ideas happen when you form a mental image of something that isn’t present or isn’t yet real. That's a concept or plan, a program or suggestion, a whim or a hunch ... or something more detailed.

Rod Judkins in the book 'Ideas are your only currency', says that ideas are our only currency! 😆

In a world where Netflix-ing, Uber-ing and Spotify-ing are an everyday thing, remember these are the result of ideas. Ideas that someone had, they created and put them into the world.

New ways of working need us to stop this 'I'm not creative' sh*t (it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, by the way) and bring ingenious solutions to tricky customer problems.

You're clever and your customers need that.

Value sooner is the goal.

I'm posting about newer ways of working this week and getting value into the hands of customers, users, clients, patients, students - whoever those people are that you're there for - this is the goal.

The goal isn't to complicate, grandstand, waffle on, time waste or keep busy. Nor is the goal to over-consult, keep working on something until its perfect, bring even more people into a meeting or add still more people into the cc field of an email.

It's the reverse.

With new ways of working, you're looking at how to get to value, sooner. That often means reducing waste, doing the minimum to get something up and going, staying focused on the work elements that best deliver value ... and then delivering that value, testing it out.

When I work with teams and organisations helping them understand and introduce new-er ways of working than what they're currently using, I'll work through these four topics with them:

1️⃣ Involve

2️⃣ Ideate

3️⃣ Implement

4️⃣ Iterate

Let's look at them in more detail over the next few days. Are you with me?