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Organisational Mechanics

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You Had One Job!

8 February, 2024 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

laundrette

Design Error I’m in the doghouse. Mrs Lawther asked me to do the washing whilst she was out. As I am a modern man and expect to do my bit, I was happy to comply with the request. Unfortunately, there was a complication. The washing included my wife’s very chic and expensive dress. Ordinarily, this […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: culture, design error, error proofing, fail safe, feedback, human error, mental models, simplicity, usability testing, visual management

The Power of Cooperation

20 January, 2024 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

koffie met slagroom

Koffie Met Slagroom Anyone? I went on holiday last month. No sun-soaked Caribbean beach for me. Instead, it was the joys of Northern Europe. It rained every single day and then the rain became stormy (you should experience the Rotterdam to Hull ferry in a force eight gale, it is a big boat but it […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: collaboration, cooperation, performance management, road sign, standardisation, targets

A Very Public Screw Up

14 September, 2023 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Nigel Mansell's 1991 Williams-Renault example of avoiding blame culture.

Blame Culture, Isolate the Problem, Not the Person At the Portuguese Grand Prix in 1991, Formula One racing provided a textbook example of why organisations should avoid a blame culture. Nigel Mansell, driving for the Williams-Renault team, was in first place as he pulled in for a pit stop. What should have been a slick […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: blame, continuous improvement, culture, leadership, Nigel Mansell, simplicity, video, Williams-Renault

Take Me To Your Leader!

26 July, 2023 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Dalek Leadership

Leadership Versus Management Fashions change, over the past twenty years we have stopped valuing management and started to value leadership. In an effort to promote leadership, businesses around the country have rechristend their “senior management teams” as “senior leadership teams”. I even worked for an organisation that insisted that all managers were called leaders, presumably […]

Filed Under: Blog, Wild Cards Tagged With: human resources, job titles, leadership, management, management style, purpose

Risk Compensation

3 January, 2023 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Using "shared space" to avoid risk compensation.

Understanding Risk Compensation — Because Error Proofing Isn’t Enough Road safety is an excellent example of a system where many have tried to change the public’s behaviour and stop things from going wrong. Error proofing is a common approach, making things easy to get right and difficult to get wrong, but it isn’t without its […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: accident prevention, continuous improvement, error proofing, human nature, perceived risk, process control, risk assessment, risk compensation

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