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Sexism and Process Improvement

7 November, 2013 by James Lawther 5 Comments

The Big Five are five symphony orchestras in the United States that “lead the field in musical excellence and calibre of musicianship”. If you went to listen to them in the 1970’s, you would have noticed that about 5% of those excellent musicians were female. If you do the same thing today that proportion is more like a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: assumptions, human nature, service improvement

Are Tall People Better Managers?

20 August, 2013 by James Lawther 5 Comments

We all have biases; things that we believe are true, that drive our decisions and actions. But those biases can be blind spots, so they may drive the wrong decisions and actions. The worst thing about biases is that we don’t realise that we have them, they are part of who we are.  As the old […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, beliefs, video, what don't you see

What do You Give to a Man in a Desert?

17 July, 2013 by James Lawther 5 Comments

That is a very simple question I’ll bet a simple, obvious answer has popped into your head My answer was a bottle of water, how about yours? What was your answer? Does he need… A camel? A map? A tent? An oasis? A fire? Some food? An oil rig? A phone? Some sun-cream? A dune […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, customer surveys, insight, listening

Eating at McDonald’s Gives You Acne

13 July, 2013 by James Lawther 8 Comments

Correlation isn't causation

That is a libelous statement, but it is fairly obviously true, I was in McDonald’s with my children only last weekend and it was jam-packed full of spotty teenagers. It is a slam-dunk case of cause and effect.  All those burgers will make you spotty. Really?  What else could be going on? If you are a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, insight, McDonald's, medicine, statistics

Old Wives Tales and Conventional Wisdom

12 April, 2013 by James Lawther 7 Comments

Girl with scarf

I spent Easter with my mother, siblings, their spouses and eight children. The weather was truly awful. I caught my daughter singing; “I’m dreaming of a white Easter”.  In the bleak North of England it snowed on Good Friday. There are few things as unpleasant as 8 children running around a house screaming.   So despite the weather […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, dogmatism, test and learn

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