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Long-Term Strategy

2 August, 2022 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

long term strategy

Playing the Long Game If there is one company that epitomises long-term strategy, it is Amazon. On May 15th 1997, Amazon sold shares to the public for the first time. They were priced at $18 per share. Later that year, alongside their first annual report Jeff Bezos wrote a letter to Shareholders. That letter was […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: Amazon, culture, customer focus, long term, strategy

Virtual Sticky Notes

20 June, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Tools of the Trade I spend a lot of my time with sticky notes in workshops, helping organisations run better.  There are two parts to my job. Working out what needs fixing Persuading people to fix it Part 1: Working out what to fix This bit is straightforward.  You work on the gaps.  People are […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: communication, tools to do the job, workshop

Standards Make Good Servants but Poor Masters

4 November, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

standard work

Standard work I found an interesting post about standardisation in public services.   The post argues that standardisation doesn’t work in the service industry.  Each customer or citizen is different and because each citizen is different they want different things.  So if you standardise everything and then force your staff to follow the standard process […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: andon, best practice, command and control, compliance, conformity, standardisation, work instructions

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

How to Get Better at Anything — Almost

14 January, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Performance Improvement

How to lose weight There is a tried and tested way to lose weight…. Commit to losing weight. Measure progress — stones or kilos, whichever works. Find the most important input, the one with most leverage, (calories) and measure that as well. Try things that will have a positive impact on the important input. Use […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: accountability, best practice, continuous improvement

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