I’ve been Amazon shopping again this week. I love books and love browsing in a bookshop, but I have to admit when it comes to ease of use and just overall convenience Amazon delivers. So, this week following a newspaper article I read at the weekend I have bought The Lost Decade 2010-2020, and what lies ahead for Britain, by Poly Toynbee. £8.99 with free delivery on Prime if you have it. Having read an excerpt in the paper, I was hooked and made the purchase. Not read it yet, so I will let you know how it performs.

Delivering innovation for your organisation is about spotting and keeping creativity and entrepreneurship. In my previous blog, I wrote about how hard it was for organisations innovate and change over time. The greatest catalyst for innovation for many is crisis/disaster, which in itself forces the issue of innovation and change as it becomes a fight or flight situation. Wouldn’t it be better though if innovation was incremental and less reliant on a dangerous cliff edge situation? For this to happen, this requires any organisation to foster and nurture a culture of innovation and change. In this case, innovation is easier to think of in terms of Creativity and Entrepreneurship.

In my first year at University, I read the brilliant book by Rosabeth Moss Kanter called “When Giants Learn to Dance”. Amongst other themes, she explored how extremely large multinational organisations were still able to remain flexible, dynamic and responsive to the business environments they were operating in. In other words, how they were continuously able to innovate and change in spite of their size. At the time in the early 1990s this was seen as the Holy Grail of business success, being large enough to withstand the buffeting of the wider business environment, yet at the same time having a culture that enabled rapid and assertive responses to the challenges they were facing.

Following my previous three contributions regarding both the requirement to demonstrate increases in productivity and its potential impact on a workforce, I thought I would bring this theme to a close with some thoughts as to how this may link to the potential routes and twisting roads that we may be traveling down to get out of our current economic position of dithering around the edges of a full-blown recession.

High levels of productivity cause huge personal welfare issues amongst all staff, which then overspill into family, social and health issues. Similarly, low levels of productivity damage the rate at which an economy grows and after the economic lag has been accounted for produces low wage increases, a lowering of disposable income, lower spending power and ultimately a complete downturn in the economy which may lead to a recession.

Over the summer break, we sat on the beach and by the pool and for the first time since last October when I was last away, I did nothing. It’s a great feeling, that ‘doing nothing’ when all you have to think about is what drink to have next and is 11 am too soon for one! It takes a while to settle into that mindset as humans we are genetically and socially programmed to be doing, in spite of the fact we are human ‘beings’, where ‘being’ should be enough, we should really be called human ‘doings’ because we have to ‘do’ to survive.

All too often I hear or overhear a generic complaint in organisations across all staff in that they feel they are not ‘listened to’, ‘not heard’ or ‘there’s no point in saying anything as nothing ever changes anyway’. It is a common ‘gripe’ and actually comes out of the communication brand of ‘gripes’ that exist in all walks of life and across all organisations. Even in organisations that claim they have got communication nailed, it all too often rears its head as an issue.

As I’m sitting here writing this article, it’s cloudy and wet outside and has been all week, as we have a yellow weather warning for the East Midlands that will continue into the weekend. However, when it’s gorgeous outside and I’m either in the office or working from my dining table at home, the last thing I want to do is remain cooped up inside and so will procrastinate over the work at hand.

Economists regard productivity gains as the most important driver of rising living standards over the long term. However there are ongoing fears that Brexit will be sapping the strength of the UK economy over the next decade. A key measure of growth in the economy is 'output per hour of work' and this slumped in 2018 according to the figures, as the UK managed only a quarter of the rate of productivity growth seen before the financial crisis.

Many people dream of owning and running their own business, being their own boss, not being beholden to the whims and fancies of other people or an other organisation generally. Many people never actually take the step and make the dream a reality, whilst others, you just cannot hold back.