Mr Taylor has been a professional coach for over twenty years. He is widely experienced in leadership and organisational change with businesses of every size, in a wide range of sectors. A Fellow of the RSA, he facilitates Open Space, World Café and Action Learning Events.

Your business as a cathedral…..and a café

Mr Taylor begins his briefing by explaining his analogy of a business both as a cathedral and also as the café attached to it. The cathedral is built to be solid and permanent, impressing onlookers by its presence. The café is a space of movement, of people coming and going, meeting up and chatting in a variety of groups that shift and change.

A business consists of both the cathedral and the café but business leaders often concentrate too much on the cathedral. In other words they focus on strategies, processes, hierarchies, policies and procedures, rather than the people, their energy and ideas.

With as much as 80% of business performance coming from the café, David asks the question, “What might be possible if we could find ways to tap into the power of the café to grow and develop our business?”

Creating a democratic open space for everyone in the business

David elaborates on this theme explaining how to create an open space that is democratic, agenda-free and outside daily routine in order to generate new ideas and strategies to develop the business by answering one open-ended focus question. This approach is effective due to its loose structure and the combined wisdom and varied experience of the participants.

Practical strategies for success

Drawing on key business models, three of the simplest practical strategies to experiment with are Open Space meetings, Peer Learning Groups and Coaching. The briefing delves into what these mean, how they work, how they differ from each other and how to implement them successfully.

The first step is to assess how much time you and other leaders are spending on the cathedral and to determine how this is impacting on your business performance. Next, identify the best strategy for you out of those outlined for creating the necessary open space to engage people in collaborative conversations. You can start small and build up as you go.

The advice ends with a warning that if you allow the cathedral to be the defining dynamic, it will be like “driving a car with your foot on the brake pedal.”

With examples of links to further resources to help you, the full Leadership Business Briefing Note is now available to download from our website.  One of our vision statements is to help members build a better business and to that end, you can find all the Business Briefings available so far to download here.

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The 11 guides will be available for TSA members to download from the website here https://www.tsa-uk.org.uk/members-area/. The first guide, Good Mental Health, is already available. 

Business guides aid decision making

The diverse range of topics included encompass all aspects of managing a modern business. The guides cover everything you need to know, from building a brand, to finance, productivity, digital marketing, business resilience, sustainability and much more.

The guides contain top tips and recommendations of best practice in every area of business. With some academic content included, the guides also provide practical checklists, models and questions for you to apply and consider in order to support and guide your decision-making.

A healthcheck for businesses of all sizes

The guides are aimed at any size of business, at whatever stage of development it’s at. The guides are ideal for all our ‘time poor’ members, who are looking for effective, yet easy to implement, solutions. Whether you are just setting up a new business for the first time and need to put systems and processes in place, or you have a more established firm and you’re now looking to healthcheck existing practices or introduce new ideas.

Each of the 11 guides has been authored by a different expert in that particular field. These range from human resources and marketing specialists to experienced practitioner academics. Each one provides top tips on strategy and implementation, as well as suggestions for further reading and other helpful resources.

Sam Roberts, Director at Met Geo Environmental Ltd and our Technical Committee Chair, has spearheaded the production of the business guides. He says,

“We have been delighted to work together with The Retail Institute at Leeds Beckett University, one of the UK’s leading academic research centres, to provide these in-depth business guides. One of our vision statements at TSA is, ‘TSA will help you build a better business’. These guides are designed to do just that and we hope our members will find them informative, practical and helpful.”

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Tagging is a fast developing technique for accurately recording the position and attributes of buried utilities.

As the technology is becoming widely adopted for both new installations and exposed existing assets TSA felt it important to provide a new client guide to help users understand how the technology works and what features to look out for.

Download it for FREE here: www.tsa-uk.org.uk/for-clients/guidance-notes/

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This Client Guide was created to aid the procurement of coastal zone hydrographic services. It gives advice on communicating the requirements of a survey to ensure that its outcome contributes to the success of a coastal zone project. It also briefs the reader on the standards of operation, technical ability and deliverables to expect from survey companies operating inshore and nearshore. The guide is essential reading for anyone about to commission a survey in the coastal zone.

Download it for FREE here: www.tsa-uk.org.uk/for-clients/guidance-notes/

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This Client Guide was updated to help professionals understand the development of the Register of Determined Boundaries in England and Wales and the four major concepts of the general boundaries system.

The guide covers essential features and measurement practice / plan requirements for determined boundaries and It concludes with the overall registration process for determined boundaries and best practice for registered land owners.

Download the FREE guide here: http://www.tsa-uk.org.uk/for-clients/guidance-notes/

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This Client Guide was written to help professionals understand what an Aerial LiDAR Survey is and what should be included in an Aerial LiDAR survey requirement specification.

The guide covers the systems and equipment used, the typical outputs, application and accuracies that can be expected from these surveys and the factors that could also affect the survey. It goes on to discuss the essential information that a client should consider when commissioning Aerial LiDAR surveys.

Find out more

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This Client Guide was written to help professionals understand what a Mobile LiDAR Survey is and what should be included in a Mobile LiDAR survey requirement specification.

The guide covers the systems and equipment used, the typical outputs, applications and accuracies that can be expected from these surveys and the factors that could also affect the survey. It goes on to discuss the essential information that a client should consider when commissioning Mobile LiDAR surveys.

Find out more

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This Client Guide was written to help professionals understand what a Topographical Survey is and what should be included in a Topographical Survey specification.

It covers the equipment used, the accuracies that can be expected and the factors that could affect the survey. It goes on to discuss the essential information that a client should include when writing a specification for a Topographical Survey and where they can get additional resources and information.

Find out more

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