The Squawk Point

Organisational Mechanics

  • Home
  • Blog
    • People
    • Data
    • Process
    • Wild Cards
    • Index
  • Podcast
  • Book

The Mother of Protracted PowerPoints

12 April, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Peter Bregman writes an interesting post in the HBR blog about wasted time in large organisation. He points out that employees of large organisations spend hours and hours with “unnecessary meetings, unimportant emails, and protracted PowerPoints”. He suggests a three question test to guide us on whether or not we should become involved: 1.  Am […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: being too helpful, clarity, cost saving, purpose, root cause analysis, waste

Keep Your Mouth Shut

3 April, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

My drain is blocked, I have been ignoring it.  I really don’t fancy unblocking it, but as it is getting warm it is starting to smell.  It needs to be fixed. I bought a set of rods and a plunger home, as I was getting out of my car my neighbour gave me some advice: […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: capability, process control, tools to do the job, video, waste

Emotional Sub-Optimisation

1 April, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

I received a flyer from an organic food company.  One of their selling points is that they keep packaging to a minimum.  Sounds sensible.  Less waste in the environment. When you look into it though it isn’t quite that easy.  According to the Advisory Committee on Packaging:–  1.5 grams of plastic extends the shelf life […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: clarity, communication, measurement, political will, silo management, waste

Task and Spend

28 March, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

I read that the average organisation spends 60% of its money on staff.  Clearly this varies hugely depending on the industry, but as a statement it is an interesting one. It leads to the conclusion that the way to save money is to cut staff. The problem is, you can’t cut staff without stopping what […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: cost saving, waste

Illegal Immigration

24 March, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Virgin Media have sent a promotional pack offering cable TV to Aaron Needham in Nottingham. The letter from the Executive Director of Customer Care Mark Davidson (no less) was Addressed to: Illegal Immigrant, Cranwell Road, Strelley, Nottingham And started “Dear Mr Immigrant”, Apparently the marketing data that Virgin bought was corrupted, though Virgin (who have […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: poor service, waste

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • Next Page »

Explore

accountability assumptions beliefs best practice blame bureaucracy capability clarity command and control communication complexity continuous improvement cost saving culture customer focus data is not information decisions employee performance measures empowerment error proofing fessing up gemba human nature incentives information technology innovation key performance indicators learning management style measurement motivation performance management poor service process control purpose reinforcing behaviour service design silo management systems thinking targets teamwork test and learn trust video waste

Receive Posts by e-Mail

Get the next post delivered straight to your inbox

Creative Commons

This information from The Squawk Point is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Licence
Customer Experience Update

Try This:

  • Fish Bone Diagrams – Helpful or Not?

  • Should You Punish Mistakes?

  • Circles of Influence: Do You Want Your Team Flexing Their’s?

  • Do Slogans Work for You?

Connect

  • E-mail
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • YouTube
  • Cookies
  • Contact Me

Copyright © 2025 · Enterprise Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in