All posts by Rob England

Commentary
by Rob England

capitalism isn’t the problem

One sees a lot of talk about how capitalism cares only for the shareholders, willing to abuse and kill people to maximise profits. It’s simply not true.

Capitalism is an emergent property of society, like money or art. You can’t remove it. Somebody always profits from the means of production, as all the failed attempts at Communism have shown.

The problem isn’t capitalism. It’s unrestrained capitalism, like they have in the USA.

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Commentary, Ideas
by Rob England

Progress

Let’s see if we can resurrect a word that has fallen out of favour: “progress”.

Humanity has made fabulous progress in the last two centuries, thanks to science and technology. People live longer and healthier, travel widely, learn anything they want, hear about the planet. There has never been a better time to be alive. But there will be better ones ahead. That’s progress.

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Monthly summary
by Rob England

Blog posts for November 2024

Come to terms with complexity

From our book we are working on for apex executives. Complexity is a fundamental concept to get your head around to lead in the 21st Century.

The only way forward is in steps

We can never know the effect of an intervention until we do it.

Adaptability

Adaptability is at the heart of Open Work (along with Humanity and Systems Thinking). From our upcoming book.

Accountability

There is something about the word accountabiity that smacks (pun intended) of judgement and punishment, even if unintended. Some – many – will take it that way.
And yet, no person is ever in control of reality.

On shareholder capitalism

Shareholder primacy is the dumbest business idea ever.

Efficiency is a second-order priority for government.

“Capitalism has taught us that fast and cheap are inherently superior traits. In the public sector, who aim to create long-term public value, the same is not always true. More time spent engaging with stakeholders, reducing risk or considering options might be a net gain.”

Trump is not the end of us all

OK pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, start all over again. Two steps forward, one back. It’s time to get ready for the next two steps forward.

What to do about lighting more flames?

Our strategy has now pivoted to lighting up as many individual organisations as possible, to keep the flame alive in the face of the prevailing storm.  But how?

We can be better

“We can be better” is a new tagline of mine, for the Teal Unicorn mission of making work better, that sets it in a more social context – that third part of our slogan “better work, better lives, better society“.

Find balance in life

You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life. But why is it so hard to keep work and life balance? – a translation of an article by Dr Cherry Vu.

Resilient people

Another translation of an article by Cherry.

Inspired by a common vision

A high-culture organisation unites staff around a cause they can believe in, preferably a noble one. That’s easy if you are Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation or Com Co Thit, or the World Health Org. But how do you do it for a bank or a mechanic?
Or a junk food restaurant? Waffle House do.

PCS Post Become An Agile Business – Create Superior Value For Customers

One of Teal Unicorn’s clients in Vietnam is PCS Group  (Peace Courier Service). PCS Courier is one division of PCS, and PCS Post is another. PCS Courier were the first introduced to the work innovations, which are now happening with great success in the parent company, and now in PCS Post. 

Case study
by Rob England

PCS Post Become A Business Agility Enterprise – Create Superior Value For Customers

One of Teal Unicorn’s clients in Vietnam is PCS Group  (Peace Courier Service).

PCS Courier is one division of PCS, and PCS Post is another. PCS Courier were the first introduced to the work innovations, which are now happening with great success in the parent company, and now in PCS Post.  You can read a report on the parent group here, read about PCS Courier here, and a summary here. 

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