Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage

Do you remember BS5750?  Time was when it was the only externally audited management standard and much criticised by people like me for getting in the way of continuous improvement and customer focus.  It became ISO9001 and a few years ago somebody decided that it was a decent moneyspinner for...

Poor IT systems will often drive poor processes. Poor metrics because "the system won't allow us to measure that". Finance systems can be the most limiting. Companies are reluctant to change systems as it tends to be expensive, time consuming and disruptive.

Being highly adapted to the current environment can leave you less adaptable to change. Adaptation couples you to the characteristics of the environment to which you are adapted. The more heavily you rely on some characteristic of the environment, the less adaptable you are to changes in that characteristic....

Many policies are engineered around stating what people can't do, or what they must do - not what they can do. If unchecked, this can seep into organisational culture. In one organisation, I saw a kitchen area with 16 different posters telling people what they couldn't, mustn't or shouldn't do....