Entries by Matt Wright

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BLT Discussion: Adapt – the importance of making mistakes…and learning from them

This fortnight’s BLT meeting (*) was the last in a series of the subject of Resilience. The discussion was loosely based around a book by Tim Harford – Adapt: Why Success always starts with Failure – and generated plenty of food for thought

1. Assumptions: make an ‘ass’ out of you and me

All too often, we are guilty of doing something just because “it’s always been done that way”, without ever questioning why? This lovely story from around the BLT table illustrates perfectly the danger of relying on such assumptions:

A young Italian woman was making a family recipe for the first time, one that had been passed down through the generations.

The recipe called for a large chicken, and specified that the top 2 inches of the chicken should be removed and and discarded. Puzzled that such good chicken should go to waste, the woman phoned her mother and asked her the reason why? read more read more

September 14, 2018 /0 Comments/by
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What can we learn from failure?

I’ve glanced through one of my favourite books – ‘Adapt: Why success always starts with failure’ by Tim Hartford – for inspiration on this topic in preparation for chairing a networking group. 

The list below is by no means exhaustive, in fact, it’s positively under-nourished, but it does serve to act as a good introduction to this topic to get the brain cells working. 

Three common causes of business failures

1. Wrong assumptions

The medical world is rife with wrong assumptions – doctors frequently suffer from the ‘God complex’, in which they know best in the face of any contradictory information or advice.

One of my favourite illustrations of this ‘God complex’ was the discovery of the cause scurvy in 1747 by a naval surgeon named James Lind. 

For years, doctors had assumed that scurvy was linked with a lack of beer, since when that ran out, sailors frequently came down with scurvy. However, this was purely a coincidence – both were the result of long voyages, but as Harford wryly notes: read more read more

September 12, 2018 /0 Comments/by

Grammar: All about (T)

TGrammar: Which word to use (T)

https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-t

1. CORRECT USAGE

1.1. Similar words mean different things…

tic or tick?

tic an idiosyncratic habitual behaviour or spasm; tick a bloodsucking bug, correction mark or sound a clock makes.

throw or throes?

You might make a last throw of the dice, but if you are in your last throes, your situation is considerably more serious.

titillate or titivate?

titillate mildly excite; titivate tidy up.

tonne or ton?

tonnage is measured in tons (units of volume), not tonnes (units of mass) – derived from the number of tuns (large barrels) a vessel could hold; registered tonnage is the total internal capacity of a vessel. read more read more

September 9, 2018 /0 Comments/by
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Marketing – it’s all in the brandname, right?

Farm names such as Rosedene, Ashfield, and Birchwood sound quintessentially British right? Which is why 60% (*) of us said we buy them, right?

Erm nope, more often than not, supermarkets plaster these fictitious but local-sounding brandnames all over their packaging, whilst at the same time importing the food inside from overseas countries.

(*) Three in five people said they would feel misled if they were informed that the product came from a country outside the UK

1. The worst culprit … step forwards Tesco

It seems that after its succession of horsemeat and accounting scandals, Tesco has been once again the supermarket flying ‘closest to the edge’ regarding made-up farm names. read more read more

September 3, 2018 /0 Comments/by

Put your thinking cap on…but is it Red, White, Green, Blue, Black or Yellow?

Ah, I loved this particular exercise taken from a book on ‘Resilience’, so much so that it has become the subject of its own blog.

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.

-Edward de Bono

The ‘Six Thinking Hats Model’ is a great way to ‘step outside your box’; i.e. if you’re naturally optimistic, then you might not consider all the potential downsides to a decision, whereas if you’re naturally pessimistic then you might not be able to see the potential opportunities before you. read more

August 26, 2018 /0 Comments/by
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BLT: Resilience – How do you keep picking yourself up when life keeps knocking you down?

Resilience. What is it? Have we all got it? Can we improve it? 

Failure is not falling over – it’s not getting up again.

Resilience – noun

  1. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
  2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.

In a work capacity, resilience was defined by those in the BLT group as the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and to keep going in the face of adversity.

The resilience of the self-employed 

The rapid growth of self-employment has been a pronounced feature of the UK labour market in recent years. The number of self-employed increased from 3.3 million people (12.0% of the labour force) in 2001 to 4.8 million (15.1% of the labour force) in 2017.

Source: Office for National Statistics read more

August 16, 2018 /0 Comments/by

Grammar: All about (S)

Grammar (S)Grammar: Which word to use (S)

https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-s

1. CORRECT USAGE

1.1. Similar words mean different things…

sea change or step-change?

sea change the idea is that a major transformation is taking place, but very slowly. By contrast, step-change comes from physics, where it means an abrupt change in a value, as in voltage

stationary or stationery?

stationary motionless; stationery writing materials.

stalemate or deadlock/impasse?

in chess, a stalemate is the end of the game, and cannot be broken or resolved; deadlock or impasse are more suitable for metaphorical use. read more read more

August 15, 2018 /0 Comments/by