Ignite Lab

Our work in innovation and change brings us in touch with teams from a variety of organisations – cosmetics manufacturers to local councils to insurance firms. We might be helping them through a restructure, or refreshing their strategy, or designing a new product or service – but one thing they all have in common is this: the most important person guiding the decisions they need to make is their customer.

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Isn’t it amazing how adversity brings out the very best in humanity? I have recently been inspired by Patrick the Optimist http://patricktheoptimist.org/ . Patrick has Motor Neurone Disease and is successfully persuading me and thousands of others to do something optimistic every day. So often we hear fantastic stories of people overcoming adversity to do super human things.

Inspiration is not confined to human interest stories. Today’s business challenges will be a platform for new pioneers rising up to the challenges of business adversity. Whole swathes of national industries, even Governments, have rapidly taken up arms to distil solutions and find silver bullets for big, ugly challenges. The mere mention of “Sustainability”, “More for Less” or “Managing through the downturn” quickly evokes a Pavlov’s dog reaction – business leaders salivating at the thought of conquering huge issues – the bells are a-ringing.

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One of my colleagues very politely asked me recently if I would resume the practice of writing regular updates for the Ignite blog.  I readily agreed but when after a few days nothing was forthcoming politeness became interspersed with a steely persistence.  I wanted to push back and claim that I just didn’t have time to think about what I wanted to say, when the irony struck me that one of my most regular and heartfelt frustrations is having so much to say and insufficient outlets to be heard.

So I stopped and thought about it – and reached the conclusion that what I needed to write about today is stopping and thinking about it. Read on →