The Squawk Point

Organisational Mechanics

  • Home
  • Blog
    • People
    • Data
    • Process
    • Wild Cards
    • Index
  • Podcast
  • Book

Do You Need Good Managers?

29 March, 2018 by James Lawther 1 Comment

Good Boss

A nice assertion “Teams who rate their manager highly do better”. I don’t have any data that proves it, but it sounds like common sense. I am, however, always a little wary of common sense, so lets refine that assertion and go with something more concrete. A grounded assertion “People leave bad managers”. According to […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: management style, performance management

The Alpha Male Paradox

20 March, 2018 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Alpha Male

It isn’t really me I’m not what you would call an alpha male, truth be told I’d struggle to qualify as a beta male.  I will never scare anybody into submission.  I’m your average middle management wimp. But I have an alpha male hero My hero is Frank Shamrock. If you have not heard of […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: command and control, learning, listening, management style, rhetoric

What Is the Score?

12 March, 2018 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Shattered

The bully A while back I watched an internal audit.  I saw an Area Director evaluate his Ops Supervisor. The results were, how can I best put it? Poor… Out of a possible 20 audit points the area scored 3. The boss went ballistic.  He took his subordinate aside and destroyed her.  He told her […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: auditors, command and control, continuous improvement, employee performance measures, management style, motivation

Scapegoating and the Black Magic of Work Creation

5 March, 2018 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Scapegoat

An imaginary tale… Picture a high pressure environment.  Resources are stretched and the work keeps on coming. Jobs are routinely prioritised so that staff can focus on what is important. That isn’t an uncommon scenario, maybe it is ringing bells, so let me make it a little more dramatic by upping the stakes. Imagine it was […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: blame, bureaucracy, fear and anxiety, mitigating demand, office productivity, over-processing

A World Class Ego

26 February, 2018 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Ego

ego ˈiːɡəʊ,ˈɛːɡəʊ/ noun: a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance. “he needed a boost to his ego” Synonyms: self-worth, self-respect, self-conceit, self-image, self-confidence, amour propre We all have egos But the ego of a corporate manager is stronger than most. Beyond a point we don’t work for the money. Power and status drive us. We even […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: blame, command and control, human nature, leadership, management style

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • …
  • 63
  • Next Page »

Explore

accountability assumptions beliefs best practice blame bureaucracy capability clarity command and control communication complexity continuous improvement cost saving culture customer focus data is not information decisions employee performance measures empowerment error proofing fessing up gemba human nature incentives information technology innovation key performance indicators learning management style measurement motivation performance management poor service process control purpose reinforcing behaviour service design silo management systems thinking targets teamwork test and learn trust video waste

Receive Posts by e-Mail

Get the next post delivered straight to your inbox

Creative Commons

This information from The Squawk Point is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Licence
Customer Experience Update

Try This:

  • Fish Bone Diagrams – Helpful or Not?

  • Why Were You Late for Work?

  • What can a Cherokee Indian Teach you About Management?

  • Does Culture Eat Strategy for Breakfast?

Connect

  • E-mail
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • YouTube
  • Cookies
  • Contact Me

Copyright © 2025 · Enterprise Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in