Congratulations! Your organisation is growing and as it grows moves along the usual orgainsational development path. You have teams, then departments, then functions. The organisation constantly evolves to meet the environment. Have you noticed competition between the function heads, department heads and team leaders? Enjoy the video!
Continue readingCategory Archives: profitability
A Cost Is A Cost
It is better to manage a cost crisis before it arrives. You may not have time to act and then the crisis becomes a disaster. I heard the story from the Chief Executive of a national low-cost airline about how much money they were able to drive out of their costs when faced with fierce competition. That is the ex-Chief Executive, they went bust. Why did they wait for the crisis before acting? Why not reduce costs, overhead and direct, now and put the cash to better use? We’re all used to reducing our direct costs, aren’t we? What do you budget? A 5%, 10% reduction?
Continue readingGrow your own Talent
Talent, skill shortages will return as the UK returns to work. I sense a huge pent up desire to go make a difference, make some money. Brexit is done, Covid is on the run. Time to make some money! Don’t run out of your scarcest resource – grow your own!
Continue readingOutsourcing
Outsourcing has become a highly emotive subject, joined through the media with the effects of redundancies and the flight of jobs to lower cost countries. Off shoring is a subset of Outsourcing: the process is sub-contracted to an organisation in another country. Outsourcing is a modern fashion. Henry Ford thought it wise to own or control the raw material supplies for his automobile plant. He owned iron ore mines, glassworks, a merchant fleet, a railroad, blast furnaces and an electrical power plant to ensure he could control everything needed to produce that black Ford automobile. Not many companies have achieved that height of vertical integration. Today auto plants are assemblers of sub-contracted parts.
Continue readingPrejudice And Expectation
Of course, we all carry our prejudices and stereotypical views around with us. Some of these are from “expert” sources. A few years ago, a notable German airline gave a booklet on local customs to its passengers to the UK. It was amusing to read that we English, eat Fish & Chips from newspaper followed by tea and cake around 4pm. Everyone knows Health & Safety have banned newspaper food wrappers! No doubt the English have their own, equally weird stereotypes. Some time ago I went to a famously foul-mouthed comic’s show and joined in the laughter at the stereotypical French jokes. These same jokes would have drawn the same audience response three hundred years ago! Perhaps it is lazy and comforting to have knee-jerk stereotypical responses. It helps to bond us together as a team, as a group, as an organisation, or nation. To make an inclusive group you must exclude others. Very often, our prejudices are hidden in our stereotypes. This is a block to creativity and blunts progress.
Continue readingProductivity Enhancement
A version of this article first appeared in 2010, and was written, tongue-in-cheek, to warn of impending lunacy. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should! Any similarity with trade names or organisations is purely coincidental. It appears the UK economy has started to grow again! Sooner or later, organisations will come up against capacity constraints. It is usually the case that unused capacity becomes lost capacity. The assumption that you had the capacity two years ago so still have it today, is just that, an assumption. To help bring up general productivity levels, to boost capacity, we suggest you think about the three techniques below and what they can do to your organisation’s performance. Financial Incentives In the industrial setting, we need to make widgets more cheaply than our competitors. The following story shows a solution. A keyboard manufacturer had to ensure the availability of all the parts needed to make a keyboard. In order to maximise efficiency, they have dedicated moulding machines, one for each key, one for each part of the case. The operators of the machines are extremely skilled. By careful adjustments to the machines, they can change the machine’s performance. Therefore, a financial […]
Continue readingThe Project Manager in the middle
What is a Middle Manager? Why do they exist? It seems that many senior people have forgotten why. They are replacing the middle tier with management by spreadsheet and vastly increased spans of control. It saves money obviously? Only if you didn’t manage the middle managers correctly in the first place!
Continue readingAutomation
More thoughts on automation. This could be a great boon to mankind. But if we’re as good at managing robots as we are at people management then it will be a bane of society. Thought is needed about what you are doing!
Continue readingThe Herd Instinct
It is much less stressful following the herd. You don’t stick out and if something happens, another of the herd is likely to be brought down. You don’t get to be leader of the herd either. So you don’t have to lead, don’t have to make your own decisions, don’t need to be brave enough to go against the herd mentality. Is this for you?
Continue readingMeasuring Employee Engagement
How do you measure employee engagement? Why do you measure it? Why is it important? If employee engagement is a means to an end – productivity, performance, creativity – then why not measure success in terms of your purpose? Scientifically, the more directly you measure something, the less opportunity for error and bias is created.
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