Do you want your employees to work hard?  (Yes, we’re starting with the easy questions.) Well, actually you don’t. If those employees are doing the wrong things, or even doing the right things but in

I have written and spoken recently about the growing realisation that resilience must be a key factor in industry  development where security and consistency of supply becomes ever more important when selecting working systems and

When we carry out future -gazing or horizon scanning, we can often see likely large-scale changes ahead. For example, self-driving vehicles are coming. We are not sure when but they are coming. What does this

We should be able to assume that most business leaders are aiming to improve the productivity and performance of their organisation.  Yet, not many of them seem to be successful in doing this. This suggests

A lot of productivity writers and bloggers advocate a morning routine to set you up for the day. The problem with routines is that they tend to result in routine thinking. If you want fresh,

When improving performance, we often urge companies to take a longer term view. Forget short term gains and concentrate on the gains to be made year in, year out over many years, Yet, sometimes, companies

I was musing the other day about 'off the wall' inventions that might do good for the wrong reasons - or were designed to solve a problem that no-one knew existed. My starting point was

There has been much talk recently in the UK (before, during and even after, the election) about improving rail links to, and in, the north of England.  HS2 (the high speed link to London) might get

I saw recently that Mark Zuckerberg had had millions wiped off his ‘fortune’ by a small dip in Facebook’s stock value. Leaving aside the morality of the vast fortunes of these tech billionaires, I wonder

I was browsing the web recently when a headline “Offensive Productivity” caught my eye. It was an article relating to an American sports team and was bemoaning the performance of the attacking members if the

Politicians are binary creatures. They view important issuers as black and white,.  They are right and everyone else is wrong.  They rarely listen to conflicting views because they KNOW those holding contrary views cannot be

Do we want to design processes that are ‘good’? Well, we first have to define ‘good’. I would suggest that ‘good’ processes are consistent processes. If a process is consistent, we can observe it, measure

Sometimes, very small parts of a process can have a massive impact on overall performance. Take Formula 1 racing. Quite often, the winner is determined by when tyre changes are carried out .., or the

Many of us are about to celebrate the start of a new year. It is traditional to make resolutions or promises to oneself that should make us a better person in some way. Those of

Six Sigma is based on consistency - on reducing variation so that processes run smoothly and consistently, to their specification. Most processes have some variation - due to inconsistency of raw materials, variations in machine

What will a group of productivity experts do for you if you want to improve productivity. Well, the best you can expect is to gain wisdom about best current practice.  That’s the job of an expert

Why do people keep pretending that useful things have not been invented For example, I keep seeing waiting staff in restaurants struggling to carry more than a couple of plates and IK want to shout

When we are young and inexperienced, we tend to think that if we work harder we will be more productive. As we gain experience (and age), we start to realise that this is not true.  Too

I was back in China last week. The economic miracle of China is well know but many people still think it was, and is, built on cheap labour and ‘copycat’ products. These people have never

I watch quite a bit of sport on TV, including American football. Those of you who know the game will know that each side has virtually 3 teams playing in a match - the offence,

Recently I got caught up in a great commute ... I had to travel into the city centre at the same time as all the other unfortunates that do so at the sane time every

Does your organisation practise 5S? The answer Is probably ‘No’.  It is a much misunderstood and little used approach., regarded by many as ‘mere housekeeping’. It is, of course, housekeeping but absolutely not ‘mere’ housekeeping. It

Healthy workers are productive workers. it is hard to argue with that statement. However, we might argue about what makes a healthy worker. Unlike the darkest day’s of the industrial revolution, nowadays, there are not

Many companies now encourage staff to get involved in charitable work. Some even organise it and provide resources, especially time. The motivation is usually to improve the company image amongst the local community. However there