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Organisational Mechanics

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The Most Powerful Management Tool in the World (Probably)

9 July, 2013 by James Lawther 7 Comments

If you want your staff to do something, don’t just command them to do it, put in place a structure, something that helps them to do what you want.  Make life easy for them: If you want short meetings, buy stand up meeting tables If you want conversation, lay on a great canteen If you […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: error proofing, human nature, reinforcing behaviour

How are you Organised?

6 July, 2013 by James Lawther 6 Comments

Management Silos

When you ask for an organisation chart I bet you expect to see something like this: If I gave you an organisation chart that looked a little more like this: What would that tell you about the organisation? Would you like to be an employee? Would you like to be a customer? What does your […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: organisation, silo management

The Simple and Ineffective way to Improve Performance

2 July, 2013 by James Lawther 8 Comments

Fact of Life target

There is a line of thought that there are three types of target: 1.  Fact of life targets If you don’t meet these targets you simply don’t qualify: To be a world-class 100 meter sprinter you have to run sub 10 seconds If you want to stay in business you have to sell enough to […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: blame, management style, targets

Have You Killed any Swans Today?

29 June, 2013 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Swans

We live and work within systems, systems that connect things.  One way or another everything is connected. That sounds like psycho-babble, so let me give you an example: Legislation leaves swans starving The In the far north of England on the border with Scotland is the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.  In 1994 the flock of swans […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: devil is in the detail, point optimisation, service design, systems thinking

Are You a Lazy Manager?

25 June, 2013 by James Lawther 4 Comments

lazy manager

I’m all for blanket policies, they make life easy, everybody knows where they stand: Everybody on the same pay scale Everybody entitled to the same amount of holiday Everybody gets the same computer If you treat everyone fairly then everyone feels fairly treated. But I’m not so keen on blanket solutions A few years ago […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: bad process, employee performance measures, problem solving, public relations, root cause analysis

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