Legend has it that the tie that I wore to work this morning started life hundreds of years ago as a neck cloth that was “easily changed to minimise the soiling of a doublet.” Or, to put it in rather less grand terms, a bib. From function to fashion 400 years ago, Croatian mercenaries fighting […]
Customer Complaints: Does Your Bank Act Like a 3 Year Old?
Part 1: How children behave There was a little girl Who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead When she was good she was very very good And when she was bad she was horrid I didn’t really understand that nursery rhyme until I had daughters. Now I have a couple […]
Management Targets Result in the World’s Largest Stag Party
The target Since 1978 China has had a One Child Policy. The aim of the policy is to reduce population growth in the country. The theory is that this will curtail demand for natural resources and so enable economic development. Adherence to the target is managed by stringent financial penalties for those parents who’d like […]
What did Tony Blair do for Customer Service?
Control versus empowerment: Option 1. Rule with an iron fist, don’t allow employees to show any initiative, make sure they do what the centre says they must do, be inflexible, remove yourself from the action. Option 2. Empower people, let them do whatever they think is the right thing, let processes and standards diverge, all […]
Stupid Rules
The Prescription My one year old daughter has a bad case of eczema. I took her to the Doctor who wrote out a prescription for a steroid cream. He muttered that the PCT (Primary Care Trust) would not be happy with him. This cream only contains 0.5% active ingredient and is £12 a tubeThe one the […]