IRIS Blogs

Welcome to a New Decade, a New Year and a new blog.

So you might well ask me: “What made you decide to blog just as the world seems to have moved onto Twitter?”

Well, firstly, I’m doing it as a way of reaching employees within IRIS on a more regular basis. Those people that I don’t meet up with as often as I’d like, because of our geographical spread – the idea came from our Future Leaders. 

We run a Future Leaders programme at IRIS for some of our high potential employees, preparing for their first step into management. The selection process comprises a rigorous Apprentice style assessment to get on the scheme, then a combination of coursework, mentoring and practical project work during the year.

This year, the team were assigned a project to help us improve employee communications and quite rightly, they started by surveying our employees to find out what they wanted us to do to ensure better interaction – we had an amazing response rate of around 50% to the survey.

As well as a lot more face-to-face communication (e.g. employee workshops) and a radical overhaul of our extranet, the team asked me to start a blog as a way of communicating directly and more regularly, in short bursts, with all our employees, sharing thoughts, ideas and experiences and encouraging more immediate dialogue and feedback. So here we go!

The second reason is linked to the first, but the main difference being that is to reach audiences external to IRIS. I’m keen to harness the speed and reach of the web. Time is by far and away our most precious commodity. So how can we use the web to rapidly create and access new communities, share ideas interactively and rapidly, widen our knowledge horizons, learn from others and stop us all becoming too blinkered? Nothing new here you might say, so let me explain further…..

So, there I was, at the gym, trying to concentrate on something other than the pain of exercise, when I bumped into my cousin, with his kids. My conversation with his six year old son went along the lines of “What ….?” “Why …..?” “Where ….?”, “When….?”, How….? “ “Who etc…”  – he fired a barrage of open questions which left me more exhausted than my exercise, but which I answered patiently and hopefully gave him the information he was looking for! However, I felt exhilarated to be reminded of the thirst for knowledge we have when we are young.

It also made me question: “Why is it that so many adults, particularly in a business context, so rarely ask the common sense open questions that would enable them to make better decisions? Why do people often fail to anticipate and deal with issues before they arise (“sleepwalking into danger”), or at the very least, have a Plan B (Contingency Plan)? What are the reasons that some of us forget how to question effectively as we did as children, once we grow up ” are we nervous about looking foolish?”

This blog is dedicated to those who love to question and its aim will be to stimulate, provoke and encourage feedback and interaction.

Why blog? Why question?

That’s why I’ve started.