UK consultancy awards 2010

I attended the MCA last night, held at the rather posh Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London. The event celebrated the best management consulting projects from 2009. The Awards identify the best case studies in each of 12 categories, where organisations, in the private or public sector, have achieved a significant improvement in performance through working with management consultants.

It was a pretty good night - not only did the organisation I work for (Atos Consulting) win 3 of the main awards (more than anyone else!!) but we also were treated to Fred MacAulay(Scottish funny man and TV and radio personality) as MC. Fred really held the even together very well with a combination of humor (mostly political, volcano and naughty jokes) and by maintaining a good pace throughout.

One thing didn't work for me though- the branding. The MCA clain that the winners demonstrated that they were

“business superfuel” and could deliver faster, smoother, better results and go the extra mile for their clients to win a prestigious MCA Management Award?

Business superfuel? What? Does nothing for me! For a metaphor to work it needs to be generative i.e. it must make you naturally follow the metaphor through and build on the notion throughout the business to which you are referring. Sorry MCA but "Business Superfuel" is right up there with Subway's "sandwich artists".

On the other hand, one of the great and good from the MCA did say something that I really did find interesting:

...for every pound spent on management consulting in the UK organisations gain an extra £6 in value

Now there is a good deal!

On your marks, get set, GO - London Olympic Conference

I facilitated an event this week for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) which focused on the various IT partners who are working on delivering the technology that will support 2012 games. It was a good practical conference with lots of breakouts (or breakshops as I called them by mistake!) during which the 150 delegates, drawn from several of the worlds top IT businesses, considered how the massively complex IT challenges of the games could be met (communications, media, race timing, transportation management, mobile devices etc).

The scale of the games is difficult to describe, however one statistic really helped me get a flavour of the challenge. There are going to be 70,000 volunteers working at the London games who will be selected from an estimated 1 million online applicants. WOW.

The keynote speaker for the event was Olympic 800 and 1,500 meter gold medalist, former Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Olympic bid for 2012, Lord Seb Coe. Seb gave a short speech which highlighted his pride in being part of the team who won the Games for London as well as focusing on how he became a world class athlete. He showed conference a video of his training regime, which involved him running multiple 800 meter races one after the other whilst being chased by a car with his coach at the wheel with only 45 seconds recovery time between the "races". I was exhausted just watching this but he made a good point in summary. The idea was that no matter how difficult a "real" race was it would NEVER be as tough as his training regime. A lesson there for us all - preparation and rehearsal are everything.

Seb also impressed when he asked for an off the cuff Q&A session. Given the proximity to the UK election, he was naturally pressed about his political views. He refused to enter into that debate and focused instead on how important the government (of whatever colour) was in making his dreams come true for the Olympics and for his latest passion, bringing a football World Cup to England in 2018. Another lesson for us all - when you find your passion, focus, stick with it and don't be distracted no matter how tempted.

Poor leadership - what is your excuse?

I came across this excellent example of how art can be used to describe the complexities of business life. In this graphic, from onefte, leaders are reminded that their actions have consequences and that these consequences may not always be particularly positive.

No need to take your clothes off to relax

People who lay taking deep breaths in a dimly lit room with soft music emerged just as relaxed as those who underwent massages or sessions of thermotherapy, in which their arms and legs were wrapped with warm towels, reports the Telegraph.

While all three methods are equally effective at easing anxiety, simple relaxation techniques can be practised at home for free, whereas massage and thermotherapy sessions can cost £90 an hour.

Scientists at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle said the feeling of relaxation people experience during a massage could be a product of the soothing music played during the session, rather than the treatment itself.

One of the research team said: "We were surprised to find that the benefits of massage were no greater than those of the same number of sessions of 'thermotherapy' or listening to relaxing music. This suggests that the benefits of massage may be due to a generalised relaxation response. Treatment in a relaxing room is much less expensive than the other treatments like massage or thermotherapy, so it might be the most cost-effective option for people with generalised anxiety disorder who want to try a relaxation-oriented complementary medicine therapy."

Scientists claimed last year that massage, contrary to popular belief, actually cuts blood circulation to the muscles and hinders the removal of lactic acids by as much as 25 per cent.

Thermotherapy is designed to ease muscle tension by intermittently wrapping hot pads and towels around the arms and legs, while relaxation therapy simply involves lying down and breathing deeply with mood music in playing in the background.

Relaxation is one of the key means by which people in the workplace can relieve stress, this new research suggests that we might not have to spend quite so much money to chill out of an evening.

Worklife balance - Web 2.0 good or bad?

Work-life balance is the notion that concerns the prioritizing between "work" (career, ambition etc) on one hand and "life" (family and spiritual development etc.) on the other.

Over the past twenty-five years, there has been a substantial increase in work which is felt to be due, in part, by information technology and by an increasingly competitive work environment. The main notion being that long-term loyalty and a "sense of corporate community" have been eroded by a performance culture that expects more and more from their employees yet offers little security in return.

Web 2.0 technologies (Instant Messaging, Twitter. Blogs, Wikis, Facebook etc) are increasingly becoming part of every day personal and business life. This is made all the more interesting because for the first time in human history people generally have better access to technology at home as opposed to at work. This has many implications but it also made me wonder if this has a positive or negative effect on work-life-balance.

Accordingly, and conjunction with rant sponsor Euroffice "No.1 online office supplies company", I'm running a short survey to discover what you think about the impact of Web 2.0 on worklife balance. To start with, I'd simply like to determine if Web 2.0 has improved worklife balance for you or not. Please let me know what you think - here by commenting, on the poll on the right hand panel or on Facebook.

Dealing with complex issues in the workplace - Open Space Facilitation

Open space complex facilitation is a group problem solving process that requires an experienced facilitator to keep things moving, let things emerge from complex situations as opposed to controlling things, and being ready to adapt plans to changing situations.  This technique therefore helps groups of people to go through a process in which patterns will emerge from interactions from within the group. It is not possible to control exactly what patterns will form, but it is possible to make it very likely that some patterns will form.  In many ways it can be seen as a form of "Group Coaching" or as the Cynefin framework in action:

Cognitive Edge have determined that this technique involves helping these essentials to come about:

1. Diversity. In order for new patterns to form, there need to be some breaks from the way things "always" are. The facilitator needs to shake things up a bit and help people consider multiple perspectives.
2. Space. If things are all planned out in advance there will be no opportunity for new patterns to emerge. Unaccustomed freedoms of many different types can trigger new insights. The facilitator needs to create some wide open areas in which no preconceived ideas are in place.
3. Urgency. Even though there is freedom in terms of what happens, there must also be pressure so that something happens rather than the entire exercise turning into pointless meandering. The facilitator needs to keep up a sense of action and the importance of getting to useful results.
4. Flux. Information, perspectives, views, ideas, opinions, stories - these things need to move around in the group in ways they have not moved before in order to create new patterns. The facilitator needs to help the group get things flowing around in generative ways.
5. Pace. The process needs to spawn many new patterns quickly so that they can compete and multiply, not settle too soon on too few solidified patterns. The facilitator needs to help keep new patterns forming at a good pace.
6. Convergence. Between the proliferation of new themes, and at the very end of the process, the outcome needs to "boil down" to something concentrated which is rich in meaning but coherent rather than diffuse. The facilitator needs to recognize when convergence is happening, not let it happen too soon, but see and help it happen when the time is right.

Open Space can be a serious challenge even for the most experienced facilitator (not to mention the delegates).  However, in circumstance where the relationship between cause and effect (whether that be in a people, technology or process) is only dicernable with hindsight, this is perhaps the most helpful technology in the professional facilitators kit bag.

Why engagement is business critical

Some emerging thoughts here on engagement and business performance.  I am going to try and add a voice over but that will have to wait until I can learn how to do it over at SlideShare.

Improving workplace engagement - sack the grumps

I came across this brilliant Dilbert cartoon the other day which made me laugh out loud. Unfortunately, I know this manager - he really does exist and I suspect you have met him as well.