Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email.
News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace better.
Operational Excellence, Improvement, and Innovation
Why “Red” Isn't Always Bad
While the surge in dashboards can empower organizations to address critical issues quickly, it can also generate unnecessary noise, prompting responses where none are needed. Today's tools make it easier than ever to create dashboards that highlight irrelevant alerts instead of meaningful signals. This can lead management to interfere with normal system operations or waste time chasing false alarms. To avoid this, design your dashboards carefully–focusing on when and how you want your teams to respond, ensuring they use the insights to genuinely improve. Learn why “red” isn't always bad or useful and how to better design your visual management systems.
Transformation at Institutions
Driving real change in legacy institutions is tough work. I've spent my career trying. But here are a few great reminders of how to lead transformation in legacy organizations.
Moving Beyond “Time Saved” As Your Automation Metric
When management asks about the ROI of your RPA and AI projects, the typical response is to measure the labor time saved. While this is the simplest metric to present, it often results in a superficial discussion about whether these savings actually impact the company's bottom line, whether we like it or not. Translating ROI from AI or automation requires going beyond just time saved.
Unleashing AI in Canada
Productivity in Canada has consistently lagged the US for 30 years. The existential and economic risks of AI are becoming more widely discussed, but policy, as expected, is tremendously lagging the speed of adoption. How should Canada approach policy to secure a prosperous future with AI? Find out more in Unleashing AI: Canada's blueprint for productivity, innovation, and workforce integration.
Creating a Culture of Improvement
“You Can't Analyze Your Way To Distinctiveness”
Roger Martin reminds us that developing creative strategic choices isn't an analysis or planning event that follows an algorithm. Martin suggests three vectors to develop creative strategic possibilities: analogies, tradeoffs, and anomalies. So set aside your SWOTs and line graphs – there is no formula for developing creative possibilities.
Toxic Positivity Is Destroying Psychological Safety
I've said it here before, and will say it here again: psychological safety is not about ‘being nice'. Making positivity mandatory or expected will suppress many voices and emotions, limiting the organization's capacity to effectively solve problems. Learn to recognize the warning signs that toxic positivity is gaslighting your employees.
Podcast: Boss Class with the Late Daniel Kahneman
The late Daniel Kahneman, author of the classic best-sellers Thinking Fast and Slow and Noise, reminds us how our intuition is nowhere near as good as we believe it is, and how algorithms will ultimately defeat human judgment in this interesting podcast from the Economist, Boss Class with Daniel Kahneman.
Video: Bureaucracy Kills Innovation
What will a CEO look like in the future? Professor Gary Hamel offers up his views on the future of management and continues his campaign to compel all organizations to drastically reduce unnecessary bureaucracy.
Coaching – Developing Self & Others
Book Recommendation: Say It Skillfully
Communication continues to be a valuable leadership skill and organizational capability. I recommend the upcoming book Say It Skillfully: Speak Up. Make Your Words Matter. Win Together from Molly Tschang and Marshall Goldsmith, which I've pre-read on Kindle. It's rich with vivid examples of how to communicate and coach high performance teams.
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Let’s work together to build a culture of continuous improvement and psychological safety. If you're a leader looking to create lasting change—not just projects—I help organizations:
- Engage people at all levels in sustainable improvement
- Shift from fear of mistakes to learning from them
- Apply Lean thinking in practical, people-centered ways
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