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Standards and Innovation

14 June, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Using Standards

Riding roughshod over the standard We had a bit of an issue last week.  We were trying something new and it went — how can I best put it? — belly up.  In fact its belly went so far up it ended up in a conversation with our risk and compliance team.  They were displeased.  […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: innovation, standardisation

Outcome or Effort, Which Should You Reward?

7 June, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

You should praise your children Every parent will tell you that you should applaud your children.  Praising them for a job well done and telling them how clever they are builds confidence and self esteem. Or does it? In 1990’s Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck of Columbia University decided to find out. The experiment The […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: employee recognition, human resources, motivation, performance management, reinforcing behaviour

Short Breaks Will Kill You

21 May, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Quantitative or Qualitative Analysis? An apocryphal tale… A statistician working for a large organisation was asked to explain why sick pay was increasing.  The business had an ageing workforce and sickness levels were rising.  He gathered lots of data on lots of things: Working patterns Demographics Employment related illnesses Commuting times Office locations…  The list […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: gemba, insight, learning, quantitative or qualitative, root cause analysis

Heavy Metal and Process Improvement

15 May, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

The checklist It isn’t very rock and roll is it?  Checklists are up there in the train spotting school of management.  The sort of activity carried out by dull earnest people who ought to put their clipboards down and get out a little more. Tiresome and tedious. Heavy metal I’m not big into heavy metal. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: accident prevention, checklist, devil is in the detail, operational excellence, visual management

Cigarettes and Alcohol

10 May, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Prohibition Noun: The act of forbidding something, especially by law In 1919 the US government attempted to reduce levels of alcohol consumption.  They passed legislation that prohibited its production, transportation and sale.  The ban was almost complete, bar a few exceptions for religious and medical use.  During the 1920’s the U.S government spent about $220m […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: compliance, culture, human nature, management style, motivation, political intervention, reinforcing behaviour

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