During the 1990s and early 2000s, the UK government relied heavily on target setting to manage the public sector. We had: Targets for education Targets for Healthcare Targets for policing Targets for fire brigades Targets for the tax office Targets for dustbin men No doubt we had targets for the target setters as well. UK […]
Eating at McDonald’s Gives You Acne
That is a libelous statement, but it is fairly obviously true, I was in McDonald’s with my children only last weekend and it was jam-packed full of spotty teenagers. It is a slam-dunk case of cause and effect. All those burgers will make you spotty. Really? What else could be going on? If you are a […]
Can You Make the Right Decisions?
Decision-making is hard. So hard that we pay people handsomely to be professional decision makers: Doctors Underwriters Bank Managers Tax Inspectors All of them make their living by taking complex ill-defined situations and making decisions. Unfortunately they don’t always decide the same way If you put two professional decision makers in a room at the […]
How to Miss the Point
A tragedy On the 14th December 2012 in Newtown Connecticut, Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother. He then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School where he murdered twenty-six children and six adults. Finally he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Twenty-eight senseless deaths. Wikipedia describes the what happened that day. It was […]
Blame Culture: More Dangerous Than You’d Think
In January 2001, 18-year-old Wayne Jowett died whilst receiving treatment for Leukaemia at the Queens Medical Centre, in my home city, Nottingham. The chemotherapy consisted of two drugs: Cytosine, a drug that is injected directly into the spinal fluid and Vincristine, a drug that is injected into the patient’s blood. A tragic accident The doctor […]