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Short-Term Management

26 October, 2015 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Short Term Thinking

The curse of short-termism We focus on the immediate future:  The stock market obsesses about interim returns Politicians like to see instant results Managers must hit quarterly targets  We rarely look beyond the next 6 months. It is easy to hit a short-term target It doesn’t take too much talent or imagination: If you have to cut […]

Filed Under: Blog, Wild Cards Tagged With: management style, poor service, short term thinking, systems thinking, targets

The Ultimate Business Constraint

20 October, 2015 by James Lawther 5 Comments

Running a business is tough I used to run my own business. It was hard work. I have the utmost respect for anybody who does it. The constraint on my business wasn’t the lack of good ideas or cash — I have plenty of ideas and I could always find somebody to lend me money. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Wild Cards Tagged With: human nature, management style, trust

Did Process Improvement Destroy Starbucks?

9 October, 2015 by James Lawther 29 Comments

The Memo I came across a memo from Howard Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks the other day. Here are the bits that caught my eye — to read the whole thing click here. From: Howard Schultz Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 Subject: The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience Over the past ten years, in […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: customer focus, fessing up, management style, objective setting

Trust and Improvement

5 March, 2015 by James Lawther 8 Comments

trust or control

Improvement needs trust To improve your organisation you need to understand what needs to be improved You will only find out what needs improving if your staff tell you what is really going on Your staff will only truthfully tell you what is going on if they trust you Your staff won’t trust you if you don’t trust them Therefore, […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: blame, management style, trust

Strengths and Weaknesses

12 February, 2015 by James Lawther 9 Comments

Harry was not a well man He was in a terrible state of health.  Cancer had eaten away at his digestive tract, it was so bad that surgeons had removed three-quarters of his stomach. He was constantly in and out of hospital, surviving on a diet of caffeine, nicotine and blood transfusions. A friend’s daughter […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: assumptions, continuous improvement, human nature, learning, management style, performance management, reinforcing behaviour, World War 2

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