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Did You Know That…

20 November, 2016 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Dunce

Knowledge is interesting You can classify it into 4 categories.  It all depends on what you know and what you think you know. A diagram might make that a little clearer: There is stuff you know you know I know I know the way to my front door.  This is a safe place to be. There is […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: human nature, ignorance, no substitute for experience, self belief

Management Beliefs

25 January, 2015 by James Lawther 9 Comments

Management Beliefs

Do you believe in self-help? One of my favourite quotes is from Henry Ford: Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right Personally I am all for a bit of self belief, but does it work for organisations as well as people? Does belief have a place in business? In 1974 […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: beliefs, employee performance measures, office productivity, pygmalion effect, research, self belief

Self Limiting Beliefs

13 December, 2014 by James Lawther 7 Comments

Steve Prefontaine 4 minute mile

What do you believe? Here is an interesting little sports story for you… At the start of 1954 the world record for running a mile was held by Gunder Hägg.  He ran it in 4 minutes 1.4 seconds in 1945 and his record had stood for 9 years. It was widely believed that it was impossible for a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: assumptions, Roger Banister, self belief

How a Morning Croissant can Improve Your Career

7 May, 2014 by James Lawther 6 Comments

Boulanger

The lucky baker I love holidaying in France.  One of my guilty pleasures is the boulangerie or baker’s shop.  It is not that I am a pig — though I have been known to knock back more than my fair share of croissants — the thing that I love is the shop itself, the window display, […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: competence, good service, pride in the job, purpose, self belief

World Class Rhetoric

1 December, 2013 by James Lawther 6 Comments

rhetoric

The other day I was sent a report.   It went a little like this… (The names have been changed to protect the guilty)   World Class Performance It has been implied that our performance could be improved.  All available data suggests that this cannot be the case Market Context We have the highest satisfaction […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, beliefs, credibility, fessing up, group think, ignorance, integrity, rhetoric, self belief, statistics, W. Edwards Deming

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