Failure Demand – it’s hidden in plain sight

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Less cost, happier customers, happier staff, happier you. 

There’s something hidden in plain sight which is inhibiting these from happening – John Seddon’s Failure Demand.

It’s not a new concept, but John’s naming of, and describing of the concept is brilliant, which leads to understanding and action.  His book Freedom from Command and Control is a must-read for anyone involved in service centres, along with the more recent Beyond Command and Control.

Genuine Buy-In – the power of CAPI

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My work with organisations often involves getting groups together so they can see their work situation, make decisions on what needs to change and put these into action.    Which means at some point in the preparation, we are going to be asking “right, so who do we need to have in the room”?

That’s where I lean one of the brilliant concepts of Dr. Ichak Adizes, called CAPI.

The Weekly One-on-One – the simple thing that makes you a better leader

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There’s a thing that you can do to become a better leader that it is so simple, it’s difficult for many to believe it can make so much difference.

That thing is the weekly one-on-one. 

The best descriptions of the importance of this and some guidelines come from Manager Tools, founded by Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne 15 years ago.  Originally a podcast, it’s now a consultancy, training company and there’s a book.    They call the one-on-one the ‘O3’, and they have it as one of their cornerstones of good leadership.

They’re not wrong.

The Resource Bargain – The Root Cause of Organisational Pain

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The world of work is chaotic and filled with anxiety.  We can track most of that back to one source – to the one thing that is rarely done well in most organisations – the Resource Bargain.

The term the ‘Resource Bargain’ comes from Stafford Beer (1926-2002), legend in systems thinking and the creator of the Viable System Model (VSM), one of the best ways to diagnose and change organisations (or any system) so they work better.

Improve Performance – Use Limits Not Targets

(Prefer to watch on video than read?  Then just click here – 5 mins, with captions.  Previous videos here BTW).

It’s very standard to set some targets when performance is in need.  Often smoke-screened by calling them KPIs (forgetting what the ‘I’ stands for).  Maybe even ‘aggressive targets’.

Yet…they don’t always get the hoped-for result, for a simple reason – targets aren’t how things work in the real world!

The Conventional Way

Here’s how we’d typically do it.  Take this graph, with Performance on the vertical and Time on the horizontal, with the horizontatal dotted target line.  And let’s assume higher is better.

How to Lift Your People’s Capability – The Ultimate Force Multiplier

If you’d prefer to watch on video than read, just click here – 5 mins with captions.

“I need lift the capability in my team so I can do more future-focussed work”.  It’s in the Top 3 things I’m going to hear whenever I have a chat to a manager at any level, and it’s a good idea. 

What’s rarely covered is how to actually do it.  That’s what we’re going to sort now.

Coming to Grips

Ever thought of yourself as a production line?  It’s easy to do in manufacturing, might look like this:

Performance Measures that Worked – A Case Study From Major League Baseball

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Managers introduce measures because they’re paid to get results…and often it goes nowhere.  This is a case study of where it worked, and it comes from Major League Baseball.

Baseball – Balls and Strikes

First – the game of baseball.  Robin Williams said…

…so baseball is like test cricket on speed.

While you might know baseball as hitting, fielding and running around the bases to score runs, the key moment happens over 300 times a game when the pitchers throws (‘pitches’) the ball to the hitter.  If not put into play, each pitch is a ball or a strike.  Three strikes and you’re out, four balls mean you get to go to first base.

Overload – It’s Time To Save Your Sanity

You can also watch this article as a video – click here.  5 mins, with captions.

There’s a disease afflicting everyone in organisational life and it’s hurting people.  It’s overload.  It needs to be stopped.  Unfortunately…that’s now up to you!

The Fundamental Change

Where did this come from?  My hypothesis is…the mid-90s (note: ‘hypothesis’, which means a proposition to be investigated.  I’m sure there’s research).  It was about then that email got going, and from that moment on, assigning work got extremely easy.  Just email!

Here’s what I’d suggest the graph would look like if we could do stress and number of emails together:

Utilisation Obsession – why your organisation is in permanently clogged chaos

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A state of overload and chaos has become sadly normal in organisations.  Here’s the thing – it comes from a very natural condition – an obsession with utilisation.   I’ll explain…

These ideas originated from one of the all-time gurus – Eli Goldratt.

Way Basic Work System

To demonstrate, I’ll draw my favourite diagram that my long-time clients will recognise (with one change):

A Simple Change for the Buy-In, Accountability and Agility You Want

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Your people want more communication.  I know this because your latest staff survey had this as the second-biggest issue behind cross-functional work.

You want more buy-in and commitment.  You also want more accountability or ownership taken, and you want your team, your division, your organisation to be more adaptable, responsible, or dare I say it….that ‘a’ word.

The good news is there’s a simple step you can put in place that lays the foundation for this (not the panacea…but the foundation)

Be networked they cry!

If you’ve been alive and in organisations this century, you’re tired of being told that you need to go from this: