Excellence Managers talk a lot about excellence. It monopolises their communication. They rattle on about: Being best of breed Transcending the top quartile Utilising best practice Becoming best-in-class, world-class and maybe even intergalactic-class I’m sure you have heard something similar along the way. But it is only talk There are a handful of problems with […]
Archives for January 2018
Is Big Always Strategic?
The small project Today you (and I) will be confronted by a handful of “small projects”. Things that you could nail down within a couple of weeks. Small things that will make your business work better. Perhaps you could: Free up some space on the servers to make them run more efficiently. Draw up a […]
Myopic Management
The quick fix Managers are problem solvers. We spend our days finding issues and fixing them: We solve the problem of low sales by offering discounts. We solve the problem of high costs by cutting budgets. We solve the problem of poor quality by extra inspection. Our time is filled with discrete problem after discrete […]
The Two Faces of Accountability
Accountability When things go wrong there is a simple solution. Politicians do it, journalists do it, managers do it and even my children do it. When things go wrong we search for somebody to blame “hold accountable”. It’s in our nature. Fortunately it is more nuanced than that. There are two ways we can […]