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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

A Bum Question

30 June, 2019 by James Lawther 2 Comments

360-degree feedback Does my bum look big in this? If you have ever been asked that question, you know there are two types of answer.  A right and a wrong one. The wrong answer has many variants… Yes — too brutal Try a bigger size — too honest I think it is the colour — […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: best practice, credibility, human nature, human resources, performance management, trust

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

Do You Believe in Brainstorming?

2 January, 2019 by James Lawther 6 Comments

Conventional wisdom Noun: The generally accepted belief or opinion about a particular matter. Conventional wisdom may be proven to be untrue. Example: It is widely believed that before the voyage of Christopher Colobus most people thought that the world was flat. This is however not true.  The myth of the flat earth Brainstorming What do you do when you need a novel solution? The answer is obvious, you hold a brainstorming session. I’ve been doing them for 30 […]

Filed Under: Blog, Tools & Techniques, Wild Cards Tagged With: beliefs, best practice, brainstorm, dogmatism, innovation

How Netflix Reinvented H.R.

17 November, 2018 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Reinvent Human Resources

Harvard Business Review Patty McCord It would be wrong to hold one group totally accountable for an organisation’s culture, but I think the good people in H.R. have a big part to play.  They set the rules that employees live by. If I am right and H.R. has such a powerful role, why do most […]

Filed Under: Best of the Web, Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: best practice, culture, human resources, sacred cows, SlideShare, video

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