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Organisational Mechanics

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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

Pointless Conversations

30 August, 2018 by James Lawther 1 Comment

Management meetings Do you ever lose the will to live in management meetings?  Sometimes they are so bad I want to scoop out my eyeballs with a tea-spoon.  I’d do anything to get out of the conversation. I hate futile meetings that are a waste of everybody’s time — usually highly paid people’s time. Here […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: bureaucracy, command and control, cost saving, diversity, effective meetings, employee performance measures, forced fun, key performance indicators, management style, motivation, objective setting, office productivity, performance management, targets, waste, wasted intellect

Performance Appraisals Drive Mediocrity

30 July, 2018 by James Lawther 9 Comments

Play to your strengths

It is mid-year If you work in the corporate world that means you have been busy writing appraisals.  If you have never seen one, the standard corporate appraisal form has about 5 sections: Progress Against Objectives — what you did Fit with Competency Framework — how you did it Core Strengths — things you did […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: average, best practice, collaboration, employee performance measures, performance management, sacred cows, wasted intellect

Busy Doing Nothing

13 December, 2015 by James Lawther 4 Comments

I am a busy man An executive with a burgeoning inbox — or so I tell my wife. This week I… Wrote presentations Prepared for audits Attend stakeholder briefings Drafted investment proposals Wrote appraisals Reviewed budgets Socialised information Reorganised departments Hired new staff Brainstormed solutions Talked about customers Discussed automation strategies Visited suppliers Defined new […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: bureaucracy, human nature, management style, purpose, video, wasted intellect

Is it Five O’Clock Yet?

1 August, 2014 by James Lawther 2 Comments

5 o clock

It’s Friday.  The weekend is nearly upon us, be honest, work is not uppermost on your mind at this precise moment in time. So to help you slide into the weekend here are 5 articles you really should read.  Think of it as management education…  Not wasting your time surfing the web. 1.  Can Japanese […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: blame, leadership, management style, motivation, performance management, targets, Toyota, wasted intellect

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