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Organisational Mechanics

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Stating the Blindingly Obvious

7 August, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

High Performing Teams If there’s a subject that will get the good people in H.R. excited it is high performing teams.  They are the holy grail of human resource management.  Everybody wants a high performing team. Conventional wisdom tells you to get the “best-of-breed”. Find the most capable sales men, ops guys, marketeers and technical wizards and […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: communication, culture, listening, office productivity, organisation, performance management, research, SMART goals, systems thinking, teamwork

Centre of Excellence or Management Folly?

28 July, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

The centre of excellence How many times have you heard the claim “We are building a centre of excellence”? Or, even more triumphant, “We are a centre of excellence!” It is great management speak. It shows strategic drive and direction. Every thrusting young manager wants a centre of excellence, why wouldn’t they? There are a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: cheap and nasty, collaboration, cost saving, human nature, organisation, point optimisation, silo management, systems thinking, targets, world class

Organisations Create Culture

22 April, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Organisation noun /ɔːɡ(ə)nʌɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/ A group of people with a particular purpose, such as a business or government department. The way activities are managed and completed. synonyms: company, firm, concern, operation, corporation, institution, group, establishment Culture noun /ˈkʌltʃə/ The ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society. The way we do things round […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: conformity, culture, human nature, organisation

The World’s Most Useless Document

27 November, 2017 by James Lawther 2 Comments

The org chart When you join a new business the people in H.R. will give you something like this: As good corporate citizens we all seize this as one of the most important pieces of paper we will be given. It tells us how the concern works. It is critical information, it tells us how […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: bureaucracy, command and control, communication, culture, customer focus, human nature, organisation

Do You Know Where You Are Going?

22 March, 2016 by James Lawther 5 Comments

Unifying Purpose

Stating the bleeding obvious… When I was in my 20’s I went on a course.  The instructor put up a slide.  It looked like this: His point was simple.  To be successful create alignment.  Make sure everybody is pulling in the same direction.  It was such an obvious point that I wondered why on earth […]

Filed Under: Blog, Wild Cards Tagged With: human nature, organisation, purpose

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