The Blogworld of Poppyfish People Development

Pandemic is a Poppyfish business simulation and management learning exercise designed to help organisations to understand the possible consequences of an outbreak of pandemic flu. The simulation involves participants managing a number of realistically structured and interactive departments, business units or teams through a pandemic cycle, juggling resources to maintain operations and deliver objectives. Run as a one day phased decision making exercise Pandemic uses data on infection rates from the UK Dept of Health and NHS but is tailored specifically to the organisational hierarchy of the client organisation. Learning objectives The learning objective of this simulation is that by the end of the session participants will have negotiated their organisation through a 15 week pandemic cycle and will understand more about the impact that an event such as a pandemic flu outbreak could have on their workplace. The simulation is primarily about strengthening organisational resilience ...

The legendary Australian fast bowler, Jeff Thomson, had a great way of putting things. 'Tommo', who alongside the equally fearsome Dennis Lillee spearheaded one of the most infamous fast bowling attacks that the planet has ever seen, isn't really one for management speak. "Pushing the envelope" or "touching base" are not really his style. Tommo liked to ply his trade the direct way: "The sound of the ball hitting the batsman's skull was music to my ears" This famous quote starts off this seasonally inspired post. In the spring time the passions of all true men turn to that noblest of sports - cricket. All across this noble isle dreams of smashing centuries at Lord's come creeping into the minds of men of a certain age as they attempt to reconnect with their youth by squeezing their increasingly rotund frames into their musty old cricket whites and puffing their red faces around the village green. Think of the village cricket match...

Ever wondered why giving up that bad habit is so hard? This short entry looks at behavioural change and is driven by a piece of work I have been doing with one of my clients. Our habits – good and bad - are embedded behaviour that we have been slowly adapting throughout our lives. Changing habits is difficult and requires commitment. There is a saying that habits cannot be thrown out of a second floor window. Instead, they must be coaxed patiently downstairs and out through the door. This takes time, and it takes application. But above all else, it needs us to realise that change is needed.   The change curve diagram on this page (with kudos to Martin Saville who first ran through this with me as I began my own change journey) shows us the path of behavioural change. To complete any behavioural change we must move from being unaware of the need to change, and on through a commitment to change towards a complete embedding of the new behaviour. Easy eh? ...

The room was bursting with undergraduates. In fact, had Roy Castle and Norris McWhirter walked in then the Record Breaking nature of what was about to happen would have been plain for all to see. Simulations involving over 60 people in one open session are rare beasts. Yet thanks to a chance conversation with Dr Tassos Patokos of the University of Hertfordshire Business School we, and his sixty students, were about to indulge ourselves exactly that. My mind went back to the chat Dr Patokos and I had over a glass of wine at a conference three months earlier. We had moved on from the euro-crisis and had started finding a more stable common ground, discussing how simulations can inject energy and creativity into learning. An expert in Game Theory, Dr Patokos was eager to see how such events played out, and how they might offer learning opportunities in which his undergraduate students could experience a different perspective on their work topics. We agreed to set somet...

Ask anyone what they would do if they could travel in time and sooner or later someone will tell you they would go forward to the next lottery draw date, so they could return to the present day and buy the winning ticket. This week the Euromillions lottery is another roll over. Visualising the future isn’t easy. But never mind our own fanciful dreams of lottery riches, for managers and leaders creating strategy in today’s organisations seeing into the future is an essential skill, yet developing this foresight can be incredibly difficult. Taking the brave first steps now in a change programme to move your company towards an uncertain future can be even harder. How can we know what the future will hold? If only we could travel through time. If only we had a machine to take us there…. In Poppyfish simulations the scenario is our vehicle to the future. Climbing aboard a simulated exercise that projects your business into the future can be the vehicle that enables our expl...

Being a snow bully is snow joke… Everyone knows a snow bully . Snow bullies just love it when the snow comes, for this is the chance for them to shine. A snow bully will walk 15 miles through waist high drifts   just to attend a meeting that no-one else can get to. They will take the country lanes route to work when everybody else sticks to the main and treated roads. They will have snow shoes that they purchased from a specialist Alpine shop exactly for this kind of situation. They have a spare pair of dry socks that they keep in their desk for this type of crisis, and a glove compartment stuffed full of energy bars. Oh yes, they are well organised to cope with a little bit of snow. Unlike you, you pathetic ‘snow victim’ … A snow victim never wanders far from their slippers when the snow arrives. They are the first to fret about how the snow stops them from doing things. Much to the outward frustration (but inner victory) of the snow bully they will not be at today’s m...

The Art of Delegation I don't often blog about management tips, but when I talk to experienced managers and leaders about what challenges them in their working lives one of the consistent responses I get (and one that is often reinforced when speaking to their teams) is that they have trouble delegating work. This always surprises me. Not only that, but everyone involved seems to accept this weakness with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders as if to say, 'oh well, it is just the way they are'.     When I question them about this attitude. A common response by those self-confessed bad delegators is to justify the lack of concern by stating that they avoid delegation because they believe that passing the job to somebody else takes too long. How many times have you heard people around you say “ It’s quicker to do it myself ”? Often, this is offered as a justification for them choosing to perform a piece of work that they know could have been per...