The Squawk Point

Organisational Mechanics

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

Mishaps, Accidents and Family Bust-Ups

5 March, 2019 by James Lawther 6 Comments

Swiss cheese I went skiing during half term. It is the thing to do. The only (and I mean only) time you will ever prise the British middle classes out of their Volvos and BMWs and onto a bus is during the spring half term break. Then, miraculously, you will find all the little Joshuas […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: accident prevention, blame, culture, error proofing, swiss cheese model

The U-Turn

29 January, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Executive express There is a new model of executive saloon on the market. It comes with all the bells, whistles and gizmos: Adjustable heated leather seats with multipoint massage to reduce stress Drinks cabinet with crystal glass decanters and walnut inlay for further stress reduction Five litre super charged, turbo charged, fuel injected engine for […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: blame, culture, human nature

Blame or Solutions?

8 January, 2019 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Finding Blame

Blame is natural The minute something goes wrong we seek out somebody to blame.  Somebody to take the rap.  It is human nature to find a fall guy when things go belly up. Blame is easy We live in a connected world.  We work within a mesh of colleagues, customers and suppliers, so there are […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: blame, culture, root cause analysis

The Frog, the Pig and the Princess

23 December, 2018 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Muppet Personality Test

Order or chaos? In 2012 Dahlia Lithwick came up with the ultimate personality test. Forget Myers Briggs and Belbin, the true measure of who you are is the Muppet Test. Lithwick based the Muppet Test on her observation that there are two types of Muppet with two distinct types of personality. The ultimate personality test […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: group think, human nature, innovation, roles and responsibilities, stereotype, teamwork

Awkward Stakeholders

10 December, 2018 by James Lawther 3 Comments

The interview I interviewed somebody the other day.  I prepared by googling the “Top 10 questions to ask at an interview”.  In at number 4 was the classic awkward stakeholder question.  I tried it out.  This is how it went… Question 1. How do you influence stakeholders? The interviewee jumped up, grabbed a white board […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: colleagues, culture, teamwork

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • …
  • 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?

  • Solutioneering

  • Why Were You Late for Work?

  • Why Would You Want to Work for Google?

Connect

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

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