The half dozen most viewed articles of 2020, in reverse order, are:
- The triple A – the need to balance accountability, authority and ability in designing management roles
- Undelegation – unexpectedly encouraging managers to delegate less!
- You shall not pass – the leader as gatekeeper, choosing what to exclude and what to let in
- It’s wellbeing not welldoing – moving beyond wellbeing interventions
- Imposter syndrome exposed – getting (gently) impatient with self doubt.
- Truth doesn’t rise to the top – why senior leaders are inevitably deceived
The article Taking stock: nine maxims was actually the third most read, but I’ve excluded it as it was, in itself, a summary of previous writing.
Truth doesn’t rise to the top, published in April, was nearly twice as well read as the next most-read article. I think this is fair: it says something important on a topic we often avoid discussing. that I still return to its ideas in my own work.
The least viewed articles of the year (excluding housekeeping items like collections, links to writing on other sites and statements) were:
- If something doesn’t work – when persistence becomes a vice not a virtue
- Before you worry about results, consider the results of the results – it’s not really what you measure but what you do with what you measure
- Crisis 12: Matthew’s on the computer – the new digital divide
- Crisis 2: liberated from perfection – how a crisis enables us to take risks
- The green, green grass – why organisations and systems go through repetitive cycles of change
Some of the titles may be simply too cryptic. A New Years resolution for me to change. Sadly I feel that the issues in Matthew’s on the computer will continue to plague us in 2021. Liberated from perfection is very short but epitomises something of a revelation for me this year. We have done so many things we wouldn’t have dared.
My collection of articles on the coronavirus crisis generally was not well read – although one of them, Crisis 8: let science decide, was in the top ten (which argues that science cannot decide by itself) and Crisis 6: the revolution may be revised (which warns against hopes for a post-crisis utopia), was not far off.
The more popular items seem to be those concerned with leadership behaviour and ethics rather than practical advice. Issues related to excess workload are popular. Although, to be fair, I have been inconsistent in promoting articles, so this may say more about what I find most interesting rather than what other people do.
Articles I wish has been better read this year?
- Society of angels – which explores when rules are helpful and unhelpful
- Four by four – which presents my theory that we can sustain only four hours of intense creative work a day over the long term
- The peacock’s story – which explores organisational culture in terms of fossilised strategies for success
There are half a dozen article I began to write, or even finished, but haven’t published (yet). These include discussions on spotting high potential, conservatism, business writing, activism, a follow up to the culture article (on how to change it), a further review of Saul Alinsky (waiting until I can find his book) and something unkind on the use of auguries and oracles in modern management.
Note to self 