Author Simon Mac Rory joins us to talk about his new book Wake Up and Smell the Coffee and what it takes to create and empower teams in today’s ever-evolving work environment.
Miro hosted and interviewed Simon Mac Rory, founder and CEO of the ODD company the organisational and diagnostics company and author of Wake Up and Smell the Coffee. Here are a few snippets of the LID Radio Podcast:
What inspired you to write the book?
The book was born out of desire and need to talk about teams… I became more and more waare of the need for greater strategy in teams.
There is an assumption thta when you put a group of peopl together and call them a team that they will work.
I wanted to put down on paper how I believe teams could be more effective and productive with little effort but a more structured and strategic approach.
The change in performance appraisal
Performance appraisal is a retrograde process. The goals set in January… how relevant are they in December?
Deloitte determined that they were spending 2million hours a year talking about their people behind closed doors, so they said what would happen if we spent that time actually talking to them directly. There is a movement in the market in people were running from performance appraisal but they weren’t sure where they were running to.
What emerged from that was the need for team-based appraisal rather than individual
In an internet age, the immediacy of information and feedback that people crave today is related back into the workplace.
The change in the workforce
Millenials are one of the groups and factors that drive the changes in teams at the moment. But then you have the rise fo the GIG economy working on projects and coming in as freelancers.
There is a need to change the way we organise the workplace. There is a need to get them settled in and as productive as quickly as possible.
Millenials see the world very differently. They will dominate the workplace as 75% majority by 2025. I was bought up in the hierarchy of the baby boomers where you do as you’re told. Millenials respect knowlegde and expertise rather than power and hierarchy and they want to work on different projects all at once.
Like what you hear? Listen to the full episode on LID Radio podcasts.
If you are interested in Simon’s views on teams, read an extract from his book here.
Wake Up and Smell the Coffee is available to buy here.
Posted by Francesca Stainer
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