Reflections 6th December

Seamless autumn leaves texture

What's on my mind

Complexity, and the absence of neat rules.

In less than a year, Coronavirus has taken us from a complicated workplace to a complex one at warp speed, and it changes everything.

Before, we were driven by efficiency, and were able to use powerful tools like Lean Six Sigma to organise and design processes to reduce the complicated to the clear. Whilst things were still changing, they changed in a way (more slowly, and in a linear way) that still made these tools valuable. Climate change and Brexit still appeared on every respectable PESTLE analysis, though for most businesses still at the edge rather than the heart. Big business was diversified anyway, and for many SME it was something they assumed would be sorted in an acceptable fashion.

And here we are. Four weeks today whatever Brexit will be will be real. Vaccines will still be in the infancy of their roll out, and we cannot be sure of how effective they will be. Tiers will be variable and…