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Does Culture Eat Strategy for Breakfast?

8 June, 2022 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Does a Learning Culture Eat Strategy for Breakfast?

My Favourite Quote Peter Drucker once said that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Those words chime so loudly for me that it is like sitting in the belfry next to Big Ben. Just because I agree with a statement doesn’t make it right. Beliefs are dangerous things, so I decided I had better check. Is […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: culture, fear and anxiety, flow, learning, measurement, operational excellence, performance management, purpose

The Daily Grind

22 January, 2020 by James Lawther 1 Comment

How do you cope? I run (maybe it would be more accurate to say am loosely responsible for) a back office.  It provides a service to an organisation.  It doesn’t talk to customers It doesn’t make sales It doesn’t drive revenue It is one big cost.  A lonely place to sit on any profit and […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: continuous improvement, nothing new under the sun, operational excellence, systems thinking

Heavy Metal and Process Improvement

15 May, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

The checklist It isn’t very rock and roll is it?  Checklists are up there in the train spotting school of management.  The sort of activity carried out by dull earnest people who ought to put their clipboards down and get out a little more. Tiresome and tedious. Heavy metal I’m not big into heavy metal. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: accident prevention, checklist, devil is in the detail, operational excellence, visual management

Which Is Most Important, Perception or Performance?

28 April, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Perceived performance Perception is reality. If you are perceived to be something, you might as well be it because that’s the truth in people’s minds.  Steve Young For those who believe that perception is reality, performance isn’t important, but perceived performance is everything. There are three ways to improve perceived performance: 1. Distort the data […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: cheating, credibility, gemba, key performance indicators, operational excellence, systems thinking, tampering, targets

Making Process Improvement Really Easy, Easy Enough for Dummies

21 April, 2011 by James Lawther 2 Comments

This morning I read an article about Operational Excellence. It started to tell me that I have to define my value streams from the point of the customer, then went on to discuss 6 sigma in a transactional environment, and then, just as my eyes started to roll to the back of my head, told […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: clarity, jargon, operational excellence, service improvement

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