Occasionally we see an organisation that has pulled itself back from the brink of extinction. There are two main routes to such survival - one is to find a different product/service (product innovation) ; the other is to drastically change how you do things, reducing time/costs of production/delivery (process innovation). (Doing different things and doing things
We all know people who are perfectionists. They strive in everything they do to be the best, to out-perform all others, to be number one. In some walks of life, this can be a great attribute. If you want to be a professional musician (especially a classical musician) perfectionism is a good goal. Lang Lang didn’t become
I read a report recently which suggested that the workforce in Pakistan lacks both appropriate skills and the work ethic needed to significantly improve productivity. (This is not of course exclusive to Pakistan - it is true of a quiet a few places - or even industrial sectors.) The report then simply moved on to
How does a government kickstart productivity improvement? Well one possible answer Is to benchmark and challenge. A government can set up benchmarking across specific sectors it thinks are important for future growth. It starts by asking firms in the sector what is important in creating future growth - and then setting up a measurement scheme
Most business people are aware that the culture of an organisation has a direct and significant impact on performance and productivity. What is organisation culture? At its most simple, it is the collection of beliefs and values held and promulgated by the senior members of an organisation via their policies, decisions and behaviours. This in turn drives
Over the last several decades, especially since the second world war, we have been encouraged, and exhorted, to be more productive - to meet ever-stretching targets. And we have done it. Productivity figures over these years have been quite good. But what happened to those gains? In most of the Western world, there has been a
Too many executive teams are focused on this quarter’s results - the results that will be pored over by stakeholders and analysts, eager for some sign of development, of improving fortunes, of higher profit potential. The problem is that this narrow, short-term view tends to drive out the longer-term thinking that true strategic planning needs.
Digital Transformation (now I notice coded DX) is often cited as the basis of future productivity gains. True .... but working smarter, not harder is. not solely the province of technology. Technology can be a useful transformation catalyst but more important is the questioning of current working systems, processes and methods. If we don’t do
I read an article recently which suggested that forward-thinking companies need to merge their ‘traditional’ Lean practices with newer approaches such as AI. Whilst accepting the principle behind this comment, I think it is a little unfair on ‘Lem’ to suggest that the Lean approach to performance development does not readily accept new ways of
Quite rightly, many productivity gurus (like me) stress the importance of team working, team skills and team motivation in driving high performance. Few important tasks in industry and commerce are completed solely by individuals - they mostly require groups of people to work together in teams …. possibly small teams, possibly large sections or departments of an