One major consultancy we do respect when talking about productivity is the MGI – McKinsey Global Institute (with whom we have no connection). Recently, they published their latest thinking how any organisation can improve its productivity performance. We agree that just FIVE STAGES are involved, and that the first step must always be a good …
Category: 05. Approaches
Jul 20
Bains address organisational productivity
A major consultancy, Bains, gets down to basics and considers how to improve productivity at organisation, not national or international level, for that’s where most productivity improvement occurs Simon Henderson, Marco D’Avino, Eric Thompson and Danielle Stekelenburg write that ‘sustained performance improvement requires more than just blunt cost cutting’ – in particular: A volatile economic environment …
Jun 15
Civil Service should stand on past shoulders
At last, some good practical uncommon business sense for the public sector Approaches we’ve been banging on about for years have come to the fore – some will claim it’s updated ‘old hat’ whilst ignoring the huge potential benefits for all Colin Talbot, writing in Civil Service World, says: “It’s time government embraced the human …
Jan 06
Public sector waste
Re-reading C Northcote Parkinson’s pearls in ‘The Law and the Profits’, written 60 years ago, one might despair about how nothing much seems to have changed since then We all know his first law: ‘Work expands to fill the time available’ – administrators thus multiply Less well known is his second law: ‘Government expenditure rises …
Feb 07
Wokism against climate change
In a splendid speech, Russian British comedian Konstantin Kisin at the Oxford Union – see youtube – discusses how ‘woke culture’ and climate activism have ‘gone too far’ and brainwashed young minds so they now only complain instead of putting in the effort to solve the problem – snippets follow – it’s well worth a …
Jan 02
How to Answer America’s Productivity Slump
At long last, Erica Gunn, writing in Inc.com, focuses on how most of the current ‘productivity puzzle’ which baffles our leaders could be resolved – not by government ministers and economists at the macro level, who indeed have a role to play but only impact some 20% of the total picture – but by managers …
Aug 07
The Occam’s Razor Of Productivity
Good practical sense from Professor Jim Woods in stockinvestor.com for all busy executives out there – and stock investors too Want to achieve more in life? Of course, you do. Yet for most of us, the idea of achieving more comes with the corollary notion that we are going to have to do a lot …
Jan 11
Billionaires reveal their secrets
An interesting piece by Jade Scipioni in a CNBC news piece ‘Beyond the Valley’ There are some 2,600 billionaires in the world — and more than two-thirds are self-made A few have of the latter have shared lessons on life and how they found success Warren Buffett, worth some $80 billion – Invest in yourself: …
Aug 30
Effective change management
The following is a punchy article by journalist Simon Caulkin describing the best way, by far, to improve customer service whilst minimising costs – it’s counter-intuitive, and ignored by big consultancies – however, it works well, and puts their approaches to shame Google ‘change management’ and you get half a billion hits. ‘Change management models’ …
Jun 18
Help for SMEs to get practical
Under the above heading, Alison Rose, chief executive of commercial & private banking at NatWest wrote the following article which all SMEs would do well to consider As we gear up for Brexit, the UK’s flagging productivity performance is continually in the fore of media headlines and economic analysis Following a further fall in productivity …
Mar 06
Be single-minded
The following is an article by Professor Martin Hansen of the UC Berkeley School of Information The secret to productivity? Do less, obsess more Do one thing well, not lots averagely In October 1911, two teams raced to be the first humans to reach the South Pole. One leader and his team achieved the …
Dec 27
The ‘Unipart Way’
Unipart is a car parts company, founded by John Neill some 30 years ago and a huge success given it now has £1bn revenue and 10,000 employees This week I was invited by Frank Nigriello, their Director of Corporate Affairs, for what turned out to be a long chat about their approach, the ‘Unipart Way’ and …
May 11
Vanguard lead way for big improvements
Productivity is the most important peacetime issue facing any nation or organisation – therefore, one would expect all governments and major business schools, management organisations and consultancies to focus on it Not so For example: The UK has no well-known, well-supported productivity ‘centre of excellence’ e.g. a UK Productivity Centre – HMG might occasionally set …
Basic steps to big improvements
There are various acronyms on offer for how to go about improvement projects viz: PDCA from TQM – Plan, Do, Check, Amend DMAIC from Six Sigma – Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control SREDIM from Work Study – Setup, Record, Examine, Develop, Implement, Maintain All boil down to much the same process Managers, whatever their level and …