Being green: thinking about product and production

Amongst all companies there is a growing awareness that taking account of the environment is important for business. Being green aware is good for the planet, the bottom line and can give a competitive edge.

We live in Denmark and quite rightly many Danes are proud of the wind energy sector and Denmark’s role in it. According to the Climate Consortium Denmark, Denmark is a specialist in producing offshore wind turbines. They claim that Denmark produces, “More than 90% of all offshore wind turbines worldwide” and “almost half the world’s wind turbines.” That’s a lot of turbines! And this is a growing market, growing at about 30% a year. This is an industry that in Denmark alone employs 25,000 people in about 350 companies.

But is it enough to simply produce things for the green economy?

Connecting Makes All the Difference

Frank, talking with his hands
in my box-filled dining room.

Frank Mejia is the eldest of eleven children. Like many eldest children, he is an over-achiever. During his long career, he has worked in government, learned the garment business from the sewing machine up, done import-export, did a stint as an economics professor, developed software, made creative audio visual presentations, shot wedding videos and now, after his ostensible retirement, he’s making eLearning for some of the largest companies in the world. He’s an entrepreneur who just can’t quit.

I invited him to my very old farmhouse for dinner recently and we had a very lively conversation on how it all fits together.

Fresh out of a Jesuit university in the Philippines, Frank went into government service. During those years of the Marcos regime, there were a lot of possibilities. One of which was the chance to study for two years in London. After that, Frank owed the government four years and in total, he stayed for ten. At the age of 27, he had married and a family soon followed. He began to feel that as an honest man in government, the salary wasn’t enough for his growing family.

The good, the bad and the ugly of ‘thinking outside the box’

Fish weather vane - thinking differently

There are many tired, overused words and phrases in the business world today. Rich words like innovation and creativity are losing their meaning because they’re applied to everything from the latest slick Apple product to banking practice. But no phrase is more overused than thinking outside the box. But why is this phrase ubiquitous? What does it convey that seems so meaningful that everyone wants to use it and to be seen to be doing it?

Let’s start with the good news first. The phrase began with good intentions. It is based on the Nine Dots Puzzle in which you have to connect nine dots using four straight lines AND without lifting your pencil. The solution to the puzzle involves drawing outside the rows and columns of the dots; that is, to think outside the box. Although the puzzle was from 1914, management consultants of the 1960s and 70s used it extensively in their work. For them, it was meant to signify new approaches and fresh solutions. And in a way it still means that, though it seems to be so universally used that it’s almost meaningless.

Creativity in the workplace

Creativity is a big buzzword in business these days - everyone's talking about it, but it seems to mean a variety of things - innovation, adaptability, flexibility. For some it conjures images of companies with trampolines in their board room and a quote from the ridiculously young CEO, saying, “jumping on the trampoline helps to get the creative juices going and keeps meetings short!” For others it refers only to creative professionals and the creative industry. Of course, creativity at work can be those things but it is also much more than that. It is about the everyday ways in which problems are solved, thinking differently occurs, and real people do their jobs. 

We sat down recently with Richard Lightbody, who is the Communications Coordinator at Maersk Training in Svendborg.

The allure of statistics

One of the reasons I started J2 Research is because of our focus on qualitative methods. I have trained in both quantitative and qualitative methods and actually enjoy them both. They do different things. Quantitative methods are great for big picture understanding. For example, how many people in a country, how many of different ethnicities, religions, or ages. Or in the workplace, quantitative methods can quickly tell us how many people hired, fired, or retired. All very interesting numbers that can quickly tell us something. And this is their appeal, their quickness, their appearance of certainty, and perhaps of the aura of math and science and objectivity.

Meat (qualitative) and bones (quantitative)

But they don't always do such a good job at telling us the whys, the hows, the feelings and the thoughts of the individuals behind the statistics.  I conceptualize this as the quantitative methods provide the bones while the qualitative methods provide the meat. They provide that deeper, richer, more substantial material about a subject.

Flexible working and unintended benefits

Fast paced modern life

Back in 2001, I wrote "Time Out: the case for time sovereignty" with Richard Reeves. We argued that organizing work by time rather than task arose from and belonged to the Industrial era. In the past, work was organized by task and we made a case for organizing work in the future in a more flexible way.

There are very good reasons for questioning the time structure and schedule of work. Not least, because it challenges the simple equation of hours in equals productivity. It questions whether there is a linear match between longer hours and more productivity. We all know that there is a point where working more is not the same as working smart or efficiently. In addition, measuring work by hour in rather than output can encourage behaviours like presenteeism. This is when people are present, their bums are in their seats, but they are not actively engaged in their work.

Counting the Right Things

We love to watch TED talks at J2 Research. TED brings together some of the greatest, most inspiring minds in the world. Listening to what they have to say in their dynamic 20-minute presentations can get your own thoughts flowing.

"What we actually count, really counts." - Chip Conley