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Productivity for Productivity’s Sake

15 May, 2016 by James Lawther 7 Comments

stock waste

The obsession We love to make things more productive. We strive to be cheaper, more efficient, higher yielding.  It is the holy grail, taking up most of our working hours. More for less in itself isn’t a bad goal, but who decides if we are being productive? Myopic measurement Imagine you flip burgers for a living and you […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: lean thinking, McDonald's, measurement, office productivity, over-production, stock, systems thinking

Synergy

7 May, 2016 by James Lawther 5 Comments

Synergy

A great management word We love to talk about synergies, it is a super word, hard and scientific. It gives the impression that we know what we are doing. That we are in control. Synergy: the creation of a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts What drives synergy? If synergy is […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: management style, performance management, reinforcing behaviour, systems thinking

The Ninth Waste

30 April, 2016 by James Lawther 1 Comment

Missed Opportunity

The Seven Wastes When Womack and Jones wrote The Machine That Changed the World they coined the term Lean and identified the seven wastes: Transport Intellect Motion Waiting Over Production Over Processing Defects Stock The observant among you will notice that is eight wastes not seven. Somewhere along the line somebody thought to add Intellect. On that […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: lean thinking, waste

What Do You Believe?

24 April, 2016 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Weltanschauung An interesting word.  It ranks alongside bier and keller in my grasp of the German language noun, German (plural Weltanschauungen /ˈvɛltˌanʃaʊ(ə)n/) A comprehensive conception or image of the universe and of humanity’s relation to it A perception of the world especially from a specific standpoint A particular philosophy or view of life; the world view of an individual […]

Filed Under: Blog, Wild Cards Tagged With: beliefs, group think, human nature, management style, weltanschauung

The Antimatter Principle

16 April, 2016 by Bob Marshall 7 Comments

Antimatter

A metaphor Antimatter is by far the most valuable substance, by weight, known to Man (around $25 billion per gram). It’s incredibly rare, amazingly expensive and difficult to produce, and yet is by far the most powerful energy source we presently know of. It’s also the very epitome of alienness. Seems like a good metaphor […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: communication, human nature, listening, management style

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