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Layering Your Problems In

13 March, 2016 by James Lawther 6 Comments

Creating Problems

How to cook a leg of lamb When my wife cooks a leg of lamb she asks me to cut off the last 7 inches – the shank. Cutting the last few inches off a leg of lamb is not easy.  It requires a hack saw and good deal of gusto.  By the time the […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: bad process, complexity, quality control, reinforcing behaviour, waste, work around

Solutioneering

29 December, 2015 by James Lawther 1 Comment

solutioneering: səˈluːʃ(ə)nɪərɪŋ/ noun attempting to solve a problem or deal with a difficult situation without understanding it the branch of management concerned with embedding the latest management thinking as fast as possible a mechanism of creating activity that gives the appearance of progress without developing forward motion a field of study concerned with characterising a problem by […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: bad process, group think, human nature, ignorance, management style, solutioneering

Stupid and Painful

4 May, 2014 by James Lawther 6 Comments

Process improvement is about taking stupid stuff out I might just have said this before… It is not about adding more controls It is not about adding handoffs to specialist groups It is not about adding measures, checks and balances Process improvement is about taking out the stupid stuff.  Stupid stuff that gets in the […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: bad process, incentives, management style, motivation, over-processing

Snakes, Rats and Your H.R. Policies

26 March, 2014 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Unintended Consequences

Have you heard of the Cobra Effect? In Victorian times, at the height of the British Empire, the governors of Colonial India were very worried about the number of cobras in Delhi — no self-respecting bureaucrat has a liking of venomous snakes. The governors came up with a plan.  They offered a reward for every […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: bad process, cheating, cobra effect, employee performance measures, human nature, incentives, nothing new under the sun, performance management, reinforcing behaviour, systems thinking

The Management Spork

20 October, 2013 by James Lawther 10 Comments

spork

I grew up in the 80’s. One of the breakthroughs of the decade was the Spork. It was half spoon, half fork and if you bought the deluxe version, it had a serrated edge making it half knife as well (don’t think about that too hard). The Spork was billed as the end to all […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: bad process, employee performance measures, form follows function, mixed messages, performance management, sacred cows

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