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It’s all About the System Stupid

9 February, 2013 by James Lawther 13 Comments

It's the system stupid

I work for a large multi-national corporation.  Like most large multi-national corporations we have wisely outsourced our IT.  Part of it to a “technology provider” and part of it to a “service provider”.  On paper this gives us a very cheap and flexible solution but the reality is that the overall experience is a little, […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: customer surveys, information technology, outsourcing, systems thinking

Caution: Management by Hippopotamus

6 February, 2013 by James Lawther 2 Comments

There is a HiPPO in the room.  It is big, loud, ugly and everybody is doing what it wants. The HiPPO is the Highest Paid Persons Opinion. You can spot HiPPO’s quite easily, they are expressed forcefully, everybody nods and agrees with them and they are always the last thing said. A HiPPO is a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: assumptions, learning, sacred cows, test and learn, video

Zombies will do Wonders for Your Motivation

2 February, 2013 by James Lawther 10 Comments

I have just wasted 2 weeks of my life playing “Plants versus Zombies”, the worlds most foolish computer game.  The premise is at best dubious, I grow plants in my garden and these protect my house from an onslaught of brain eating zombies, yet I am totally addicted. I’m 44 years old, I should know […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: competence, flow, focus, motivation, video, zombies

Let’s Talk About Me

29 January, 2013 by James Lawther 8 Comments

Selfish Parking

Words are powerful things; they can engage, they can sting, they can excite and they can bore.  The impact words have on people is amazing, even every-day words provoke a gut reaction.  Try these two definitions for size: Self-centred ~ chiefly concerned with one’s own interest Altruistic ~ disregarding one’s own welfare over that of […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: communication, credibility, mission statement

How to Miss the Point

26 January, 2013 by James Lawther 7 Comments

Malnourishment

A tragedy On the 14th December 2012 in Newtown Connecticut, Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother.  He then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School where he murdered twenty-six children and six adults.  Finally he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Twenty-eight senseless deaths. Wikipedia describes the what happened that day.  It was […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: availability heuristic, data is not information, human nature, medicine

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