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Chelsea Tractors, Rapport and Process Improvement

27 May, 2014 by James Lawther 6 Comments

chelsea tractor

Process improvement should be easy You just stop doing the things a customer wouldn’t be happy to pay for. Spend a day with some brown paper and post it notes and you will find a whole host of ways to improve your processes. So why is it so hard? Because people don’t believe that their processes are […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: communication, continuous improvement, customer focus, human nature, management style, point optimisation

Do You Have to Control Everything?

31 March, 2014 by James Lawther 7 Comments

Command and Control

If there is one thing that upsets me… Really upsets me it is being controlled.  Being told where I have to be, when I have to be there, what I need to do, which meeting I need to go to… I hate being controlled. Of course it cuts both ways.  If I am hell-bent on […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: beliefs, command and control, do as I say, empowerment, human nature, management style, trust

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

Stranger Danger

16 March, 2014 by James Lawther 6 Comments

Stranger Danger

I play it safe On Thursday I spent all day in my boss’s team meeting.  I am a lucky man, I work with people I like… We see the world the same way We laugh at the same jokes We bitch about the same people (admit it, you do too) We moan about the same problems […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: beliefs, human nature, innovation, learning

W.A.I.T.

26 January, 2014 by James Lawther 4 Comments

listening skills

In his book To Sell is Human Dan Pink puts forward a simple idea.  Whatever your walk of life you sell things: My wife sells doing the dishes to me I am selling ideas to you You sell projects to sponsors Every day we try to coax, cajole and convince people to do something for us. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: communication, Daniel Pink, do as I say, human nature, management style

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