Originally published on Medium: Aug 5 · 8 min read Image of Yoda action figure with a lightsaber ‘The Force’ in organisational life is the unseen energy that can shape and control you and your organisation — often towards the Dark Side — or you can learn to use that power to shape things positively. In this piece, … Continue reading The Force in organisational life and becoming a Jedi — part 2: the Dark Side →

Originally published on Medium - Jul 8 · 3 min read Definitely not the opening image of Star Wars part III: A New Hope, with the quote below superimposed over it “Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates … Continue reading The Force in organisational life and becoming a Jedi — The Beginning →

Originally published on Medium: Jun 12 · 2 min read What the world needs now is *not* another management fad. Everyone is looking for the ‘new agile’ — some impressively deep thinking which can be simplified, commoditised, and sold. The smarter sharks in the ocean are preparing the accreditation programmes… Yet we do need something. … Continue reading Only Requisite Agility can save us now →

Originally published on Medium: May 12 · 3 min read Deep dream Like many people in these weird, liminal times, I’ve been doing some introspection. I’m not very good at it. I’m better at doing, challenging, thinking out loud, working. But a realisation of how little I am ‘essential’ to the world at these time of crisis … Continue reading Who am I, and what do I care about? @antlerboy reflects →

Don’t waste the reboot. Make this ‘next normal’ better than the last. Presented by The Yak Collective Originally published on Medium: May 1 · 4 min read Join me to learn and help define what spoopy consulting is — see below. Something exciting is happening; the fringes of organisational and business thinking and advice are becoming self-aware. Like … Continue reading Why you need spoopy consulting and how to do it →

  An invitation to the RedQuadrant tool shed There are currently no cohorts in the tool shed - and it is probably time for an upgrade. If you're interested in learning with me, please email for a chat benjamin.taylor@redquadrant.com    Over nearly twenty-five years of service transformation, 17 as a consultant, and thirteen years of … Continue reading An invitation to the RedQuadrant tool shed →

Epistemic status — just a rushed response when what I wanted to say became too long for a tweet stream. On Twitter, Simon Parker asked: https://twitter.com/SimonFParker/status/1232946521752186881 (Simon's tweets are protected, but you can join the thread on Matthew's response below). Matthew Mezey (and others — worth a look a the tweet thread) replied: https://twitter.com/MatthewMezey/status/1232951665285832704 My … Continue reading What does ‘the power to transcend paradigms’ mean? →

Originally posted on Medium: Oct 2, 2019 · 5 min read Or… I didn’t need flying cars, but is a coherent and consistent data schema really too much to expect? my frustrated tweet Well. I have literally not got words strong enough to explain my sincere and deep dissatisfaction at the state of local government data. It’s, not … Continue reading Look on the local government fees and charges, ye Open Data people, and despair! →

Originally published on Medium: Apr 13, 2018 · 6 min read By Eugène Delacroix — Self-photographed Sailko 2016–11–05 22:26:31, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64515646 I’ve been thinking about this a lot, lately. We are doing a small piece of work on local systems change, and I wrote this a long, slow journey home from a PSTA transformation academy where we are … Continue reading public service — who’s in charge? →