The Elephant in the Office
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
5d ago
Silo Thinking In every business, the work flows around the organisation something like this… Marketing specialists have an insight into what the customer wants. Research teams take that insight and develop a new product. Buyers purchase materials according to the new specifications. Logistics ship and store materials. Operations teams take the materials and produce products. Sales demonstrate the products to customers. Customers buy products. That is a little simplistic, as the work can ebb, flow and go back on itself. It may also be that your organisation employs underwriters, data speciali ..read more
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Cameras, Pictures or Memories?
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
1w ago
What Does Your Customer Need? “Your customer doesn’t want a drill. He wants a hole.” You have no doubt heard that one before. Working through customer requirements is difficult, particularly when customers don’t know what they want. Do Customers Want Cameras? I found a story in an old 1990s textbook (The Leader’s Handbook). It goes like this: Konica Cameras had a problem: they wanted to develop a breakthrough camera that would grab the market, but the feedback they were getting from customers only led to minor improvements. In a product development meeting, the then chairman Takanori Yoneyama ..read more
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Can You See the Forest for the Trees?
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
1w ago
A Broken System Waldsterben is a nasty word. It is a German noun that means “death of the forest.” Trees have been dying across swathes of Germany and central Europe since the 1970s. Leaves and needles fall, and the bark drops off, leaving great tracts of tall, dead stumps. It is a dismal sight and has been cited as a reason why Germany is one of the most environmentally conscious countries in the world. The devastation is clear for all to see. Unhappy foresters blame the climate for their troubles. A slew of environmental changes caused the tragedy, be it the pollution and acid rain of the 19 ..read more
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The Great Post Office Scandal
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
3w ago
A Case Study of a Dysfunctional Culture Nick Wallis writes a story that should be a work of science fiction. Like Jurassic Park, he takes a ridiculous premise but then plays the idea through in a totally believable way. Nobody could recreate the dinosaurs, but good fiction takes a bizarre proposition and makes the outcome plausible. Likewise, no Chief Executive would allow her organisation to wrongfully prosecute and imprison innocent contractors and employees. Yet that is the crux of the Post Office scandal. The rest of the story is only a damning reflection of poor corporate culture and beha ..read more
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You Had One Job!
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
1M ago
Design Error I’m in the doghouse. Mrs Lawther asked me to do the washing whilst she was out. As I am a modern man and expect to do my bit, I was happy to comply with the request. Unfortunately, there was a complication. The washing included my wife’s very chic and expensive dress. Ordinarily, this is a hand-wash-only item, but Mrs Lawther assured me that putting it in with everything else in a “30oC Mixed Load” wash would be fine. It went into the washing machine with underwear, shirts, and my daughter’s school uniform. Two hours later, whilst I was relaxing and reading a book, my wife emptied ..read more
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The Power of Cooperation
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
2M ago
Koffie Met Slagroom Anyone? I went on holiday last month. No sun-soaked Caribbean beach for me. Instead, it was the joys of Northern Europe. It rained every single day and then the rain became stormy (you should experience the Rotterdam to Hull ferry in a force eight gale, it is a big boat but it does rock).  It wasn’t a dead loss though. I tried the gastronomic delights of the Netherlands (stroopwafels), Germany (currywurst) and Belgium (beer, plenty of it). Plus, can you imagine my puerile glee when I ordered a cup of coffee in Maastricht and was asked if I wanted it with “slagroom”? We ..read more
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A Very Public Screw Up
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
6M ago
Isolate the Problem, Not the Person At the Portuguese Grand Prix in 1991, Nigel Mansell, driving for the Williams-Renault team, was in first place as he pulled in for a pit stop. What should have been a slick sub-eight-second refuel and tyre change became a farce. As Mansell sped away from the pits, the wheel fell off, literally. People scurried out of the way to avoid being flattened by the tyre as it bounced along the pit lane into neighbouring crews. By the time the Williams team had rectified the situation, replacing the wheel outside the pit box (violating all the rules), Mansell had fall ..read more
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Take Me To Your Leader!
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
8M ago
Leadership Versus Management Fashions change, over the past twenty years we have stopped valuing management and started to value leadership. In an effort to promote leadership, businesses around the country have rechristend their “senior management teams” as “senior leadership teams”. I even worked for an organisation that insisted that all managers were called leaders, presumably in the vain hope that it would improve business results. It wasn’t the most successful change initiative I have ever seen. Claiming to be a manager is passé, being a leader is much more 21st century. Would you rather ..read more
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Long-Term Strategy
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
1y ago
Playing the Long Game If there is one company that epitomises long-term strategy, it is Amazon. On May 15th 1997, Amazon sold shares to the public for the first time. They were priced at $18 per share. Later that year, alongside their first annual report Jeff Bezos wrote a letter to Shareholders. That letter was entitled “It’s All About the Long Term.” In that letter, Mr Bezos wrote a lot of interesting things, but a few of the phrases stick out: “We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term.” “Because of our emphasis on the l ..read more
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The Planning Fallacy
The Squawk Point - Service Improvement
by James Lawther
1y ago
The Sydney Opera House Perhaps the most famous example of the planning fallacy is the Sydney Opera House. Located on Bennelong Point on the banks of Sydney Harbour in New South Wales, the Opera House was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon and opened to the public in 1973. It is one of the world’s most recognisable buildings. Every year the Opera House hosts over 1,500 performances, and more than 1.2 million people visit. In 2007 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, putting it in the same league as the Taj Mahal, the Acropolis and the Great Pyramids. The building is regarded a ..read more
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