It feels like things are bubbling over a little in the water sector right now. With the Thames situation in the news and questions being asked about the regulatory framework. I could capture my thoughts on some of these things for days in end but….
I can’t help myself thinking about some of the leaders I’ve both met and those who I have an understanding of the role they play and wondering how they are feeling right now in amongst all of this
It’s not easy
So, I’m not describing the board here, more so those who direct functions or even those who head up various departments.
These people are generally trying to do a good job in extremely difficult circumstances. Yes, they may be paid well but that’s the same in any large corporate.
Not all large corporates have the kind of challenge that seems to be manifesting in this sector though. It’s unique in itself because the landscape is different, but…
There are things you can leverage
This may sounds obvious and it kind of is but it’s so often not leveraged OR its believed that it’s been leveraged when it actually isn’t.

Every water company and every function within those companies has a large number of people who operate in various teams. Regardless of how shiny or not our asset base is we rely on these people, every day, to do their best in often difficult circumstances. And they do.
More often than not though, because we have grouped them into a function, team, area we design out a vast amount of interconnections that are critical to performance improvement when you look at how work works across differing groups of people.

The creation of environments and the organisation of people who do the work to be able to connect with each other and given the remit to go and improve is within the power of any senior leader, regardless of what is going on at board level.
It’s how we choose to think about the work. Creating distinct siloes by carving up the work goes back to Fredrick Taylor and even Adam Smith, hundreds of years ago. We can choose to adapt a different way of seeing how to structure resources and environments around how work is in the 21st century as it’s not the same.
So if you are feeling a little bit like the opportunity is reduced because your P&L is been squeezed, the call for results is increasing and you’re not sure how improvement will happen without investment, take a look at how you are leveraging your biggest asset.
How do you think about designing your teams and environments to meet current demands?
Are you still using thinking from the 1700’s in the 21st century?