Keeping your employees engaged is a huge challenge. In fact some regard it as the biggest management challenge of all. There is lots of debate and theories abound: “pay more”, “flexible working”, “listen to your employees”, “engagement circles”. The list goes on. My favourite theory is that of Patrick Lencioni who has written a super […]
Making Your Own Luck
Yesterday I wrote about the horrible consequences of getting things wrong (Somebody Didn’t Care Enough to Be Right). However, there is another side to the coin. On 15th January 2009 at 3:31pm Eastern Standard Time, US Airways Flight 1549 ditched into the Hudson River. All 155 occupants were safely evacuated from the airliner. This video […]
Somebody Didn’t Care Enough To Be Right
I found a dreadful news article about a man who died after taking an overdose of the painkiller methadone. The reason why he took the overdose is because the directions typed out by the technician in the pharmacy said “take as needed” as opposed to the doctor’s prescription “take 4 tablets twice daily”. Tragically the […]
Can’t Or Won’t?
The biggest complaint about administrative processes is the amount of red tape we have to deal with. So what is red tape? “The mechanical and totally unnecessary adherence to regulations, needless duplication of records and the compilation of excessive amount of extraneous information resulting in prolonged delay or inaction.” I got that from The China […]
Talk to Me
The more companies I work with the more it becomes apparent that members of staff realise that they are being asked to do wasteful things by their senior managers. They just don’t challenge back. (They are however very adept at bitching about the situation amongst themselves). Managers don’t ask for these wasteful things out of […]