Things move fast. We don’t always have time to stop and think. And sometimes we need to just make a decision and move on. Preferably without worrying for days afterwards that we did the wrong thing. So how do we make good decisions in a hurry?
Continue readingThere are lots of big decisions being taken at the moment. With the world moving at a rapid pace and new challenges arising on an almost daily basis, we need to move quickly and decisively if we’re to even survive, let alone thrive. But big decisions aren’t easy, especially when we have little information and even less time to think.
Continue readingBudgets are important. They help our organisations to understand what resources they have available. They give us the opportunity to plan what we want to do and how we’ll pay for it. And they allow us to see how we’re doing as the year progresses. But let’s be honest: The annual budgeting process is a monumental pain in the backside. There must be a better way.
Continue readingI’m very keen not to be one of those people expounding the ‘upsides’ of the ongoing global pandemic. Because, y’know, global pandemic. But the need for many of us to work remotely has undeniably initiated a step change in the way we do things. And the range of digital tools available to help us to work more productively – indeed, to be able to work at all – has grown exponentially. Here are some that have allowed me to keep my business on track. And that I would now probably struggle to live without.
Continue readingEven without the global pandemic, 2020 has been a tumultuous year. In the UK, we’ve stumbled our way out of the European Union. The worldwide Black Lives Matter movement has challenged the way we think about race and about our own colonial history. And we’ve become ever more aware of (although, sadly, not necessarily more inclined to do anything about) the damage that we’re inflicting on the world around us.
So as the year comes to a close, it seems timely to reflect on what we’ve learned from the last twelve months. It’s tempting, of course, to simply put our heads down and get the hell out of 2020 as quickly as possible. But it’s highly unlikely that we’re going to draw back the curtains tomorrow on a new world of pandemic-free sunlit uplands. And so we need to learn what we can, in the hope that it will help us better to deal with the year ahead.
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