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The Frog, the Pig and the Princess

23 December, 2018 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Muppet Personality Test

Order or chaos? In 2012 Dahlia Lithwick came up with the ultimate personality test. Forget Myers Briggs and Belbin, the true measure of who you are is the Muppet Test. Lithwick based the Muppet Test on her observation that there are two types of Muppet with two distinct types of personality. The ultimate personality test […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: group think, human nature, innovation, roles and responsibilities, stereotype, teamwork

Who Knows Best?

17 December, 2018 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Learning from others In the 4th century B.C. the Greek historian Herodotus wrote “The Histories”, an account of the Greco-Persian wars.  It was the first time anybody had documented events from existing records. So it earned Herodotus the title “The Father of History”. In it he recounts a story about Darius the Great, King of […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: beliefs, culture, group think, human nature, innovation, learning

Awkward Stakeholders

10 December, 2018 by James Lawther 3 Comments

The interview I interviewed somebody the other day.  I prepared by googling the “Top 10 questions to ask at an interview”.  In at number 4 was the classic awkward stakeholder question.  I tried it out.  This is how it went… Question 1. How do you influence stakeholders? The interviewee jumped up, grabbed a white board […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: colleagues, culture, teamwork

Taking the Sting out of Failure

2 December, 2018 by James Lawther 2 Comments

The failure A couple of years ago I had a workplace nightmare.  I was pushing a big initiative and I needed it to be a success.  I had my boss’s boss on my back and the project was going belly up.  It was all very unpleasant. There were a few rays of light.  A couple […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: Aviation Safety Reporting System, blame, culture, human nature, trust

Efficiency or Productivity

24 November, 2018 by James Lawther 6 Comments

Efficiency versus Productivity

Which is better? Should you be more efficient or more productive? On the face of it they sound like very similar things, so does it matter which you strive to be? Efficiency is the amount of input you use to produce a standard level of output.  If you become more efficient you do the same […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: cost saving, human nature, office productivity, waste

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