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Poor Behaviour

5 September, 2017 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Dysfunctional situations It is easy to blame other people’s behaviour for poor performance: He is uncooperative She is selfish He is incompetent She is a bully He is power crazed She is rude Poor behaviour causes all sorts of dysfunctional situations.  Doesn’t it? The experiment In 1971 Phillipe Zimbardo set up the Stanford prison experiment. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: beliefs, management style, reinforcing behaviour, systems thinking, video

Thou Shalt Not Delay, Distort or Withhold Information

15 August, 2017 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Delay and Distort

Systems need information They use that information to control the way they act. In a system of cells (like your body) that information flows along nerves and via hormones. In a system of animals (like a colony of ants) that information flows via pheromones and signals. In a system of people (like your business) it […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: bureaucracy, communication, fessing up, human nature, key performance indicators, management style, service design, systems thinking

Three Types of Culture

7 August, 2017 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Justice

1. Blame culture I am not a big fan of blaming people when things go wrong. There are two reasons why: It is hard to apportion blame correctly. Business is a team sport. With so many players involved failures are rarely the fault of one person. If a goal keeper lets in a goal, was […]

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

Pseudoscientific Management

28 July, 2017 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience Pseudoscience answers everything Pseudoscience hates being challenged Pseudoscience rejects new ideas Pseudoscience cannot fail Pseudoscience is static Science Science questions everything Science thrives on being challenged Science opens up to new ideas Science is designed to fail Science changes Pseudoscience or Science? Opinions or observations? Dogma or debate? Convinced or sceptical? Performance Management or Test […]

Filed Under: Blog, Wild Cards Tagged With: beliefs, culture, management style, performance management, test and learn

Empowerment

22 July, 2017 by James Lawther 7 Comments

saxophone

A problem with motivation My youngest daughter (8) is learning to play the saxophone. I’m very jealous, I’d love to be able to play the saxophone. It sounds like so much more fun than management meetings and PowerPoint. Yet no matter what I do, she doesn’t practice. And because she doesn’t practice she will never […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: command and control, management style, motivation, pride in the job, video

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