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The Great Post Office Scandal

6 March, 2024 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Post Box

A Case Study of a Dysfunctional Culture Nick Wallis writes a story that should be a work of science fiction. Like Jurassic Park, he takes a ridiculous premise but then plays the idea through in a totally believable way. Nobody could recreate the dinosaurs, but good fiction takes a bizarre proposition and makes the outcome […]

Filed Under: Blog, Book Tagged With: case study, cost of poor quality, cost saving, culture, fessing up, ignorance, Post Office, purpose, supply chain, targets

The Power of Cooperation

20 January, 2024 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

koffie met slagroom

Koffie Met Slagroom Anyone? I went on holiday last month. No sun-soaked Caribbean beach for me. Instead, it was the joys of Northern Europe. It rained every single day and then the rain became stormy (you should experience the Rotterdam to Hull ferry in a force eight gale, it is a big boat but it […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: collaboration, cooperation, performance management, road sign, standardisation, targets

If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage It

21 June, 2022 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure

Unhelpful Statements One of Peter Drucker’s maxims was “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. I have lots of sympathy for the statement. If you aren’t measuring performance, you can’t see if it is getting better or worse; if you don’t know if it is getting better or worse, you aren’t managing it. I like a robust […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: beliefs, command and control, key performance indicators, measurement, Peter Drucker, targets

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

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

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