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The Elephant in the Office

22 March, 2024 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Elephant in a Suit

Silo Thinking In every business, the work flows around the organisation something like this… That is a little simplistic, as the work can ebb, flow and go back on itself. It may also be that your organisation employs underwriters, data specialists or doctors, but the principal points are the same. Work flows around the organisation […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: cooperation, cross-functional processes, efficiency versus effectiveness, ignorance, poor service, silo management, systems thinking, waste

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

The Siren Call of the Reorg

18 March, 2019 by James Lawther 1 Comment

The perfect organisation There are a hundred and one ways you can structure your organisation: You can have a flat structure You can have a tall structure You can have an inverted structure It could be network driven It could be geographically driven It could be project driven Power can be devolved to the regions […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: reorganisation, silo management, systems thinking, tampering, wasted intellect

The Elephant Problem

3 June, 2014 by James Lawther 5 Comments

Elephant

Manage the numbers We love to manage by targets and numbers.  We divide our organisations up and target managers with very specific goals: Reduce waiting times Increase top line Minimise operational cost Maximise market penetration And off we go, convinced that our number is the most important number, striving to make it go the right […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: measurement, point optimisation, silo management, SMART goals, targets

Management: Can You Have Too Much of a Good Thing?

10 November, 2013 by James Lawther 14 Comments

class room size

Good management is a good thing and organisations have a shortage of “talent”.  Having more and better managers is critical to success. So you should put all your effort into hiring and developing breadth and depth of leadership. Really, is more always more? In his book David and Goliath Malcolm Gladwell discusses school class sizes. Conventional […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: beliefs, management style, organisation, silo management, spans of control

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