The benefits of being self aware

The benefit of being self-aware (of your strengths and weaknesses) is that you can watch yourself grow and develop as a person and a manager.

Caught on stage and dropping a feather

The first performance of my daughters ballet school. The main show is based on the story "The Phoenix and the Carpet". My job OS one of the parents helping to move the props. First day and I get caught with the curtain opening while I am trying to secure the roof of a hut. Everyone was nice about it much as I am horrified.

Later on I have the job of dropping a feather from above the curtain at the end of the show. It was a perfect drop and it cycle and landed amongst the dancers. I had a real sense of pride in a job well done from this little event. It really made my night.

Talking to people afterwards, the noticed the feather but didn't remember the caught on stage bit. Seems that the power of suspension of disbelief really helps out in these cases. Overall it is hugely rewarding and hugely educational.

The magic of ballet props - part two

This is simple, it's called the 15 foot rule (I have no idea if its a general rule or one they made up). Basically you look at a prop from 15 feet away - you don't fix the flaws you can't see that distance. Anything else is wasting time and energy.

Translated into the business context, you need to look at what your customers sees and focus on that first. What is actually visible to the customer?

The magic of ballet props - part one

I am helping with ballet props for my daughter's ballet school end of year show. The process is simple. About 4 to 5 weeks before the show, the choreographer and organiser of the props have a cup of coffee and outlines some concepts. Then the choreographers spend the the time up until the show coming up with the dance steps and transitions. Meanwhile the people making the props work away in a warehouse in another part of town. Two days before the show, the finished props are brought to the theater and final rehearsals start. In the 4-5 weeks between the initial meeting, the choreographers never see the props and the people making the props never see the dance. On the face of it the process sounds like a recipe for disaster, but, this is the way it has been for the last ten years and it works without fail. This year will be no different I am sure.

It seems to work because the choreographers are able to give the props makers a vision and the outcome they want. On their side the props makers have a very good idea of the space available to them and don't abuse this. It's amazing how well a process that run in parallel for so long can come together so cleanly.

I'll upload some photos but only once the concert is finished.

How to be a great leader in under 300 words

The six psychological factors that make a really great leader

Want to lead others? Well, much has been said and written about what makes a great leader, so here are the crib notes.
  
These are the factors that psychologists consistently find make a good leader:

1. Decisiveness: good leaders make frequent decisions and stick with them. When there is uncertainty (and when isn't there?) good leaders choose and take responsibility.
2. Competence: leaders should provide resources for their group. The headman in prehistoric times was often the best hunter in the group. Nowadays being competent often means having the knack of influencing others.
3. Integrity: leaders you can trust increase followers' performance, satisfaction and commitment. Integrity breeds respect.
4. Vision: projecting a vision of the road ahead is vital, this gives people a common purpose and motivation to persevere. Without a vision, the followers are lost.

Although being a great leader isn't necessarily the same as being a great manager, there's much common ground.

These four factors were confirmed in a study of Fortune 1000 companies that had been turned around by their CEOs. That research also found two further factors that lifted leaders from 'good to great':

1. Modesty: the most effective leaders weren't grand-standing show-offs; they were incredibly modest and humble.
2. Persistent: the leaders who transformed their organisations the most never gave up. That doesn't mean they were inflexible, but that they never stopped pushing towards their goals.

These may all sound like pretty straightforward characteristics, but apparently few have what it takes. Many surveys have been carried out asking people what they think of their immediate bosses. On average these find that about half are seen as incompetent.

Source

It's always been done this way...

A nice story about the "it's always been done this way" problem.

"A quality management consultant was hired by a small English manufacturing company to advise them on improving general operating efficiency. The company produced a report which dealt with various aspects of productivity. At the top-right corner of one form, there was a small box. The consultant noted that the figure '0' had been written in every such report for the past year. On questioning the members of the staff who completed the report, they told him that they always put a zero in that box, and when he asked them why they told him they were told do so by their supervisor. The supervisor told him he guessed it had to do with accidents but wasn't sure. It had always been "0" for the twenty-five years he had been there, so he continued the practice. It, too, was something he was told to do by his former supervisor.

The consultant could find no one in the company who could tell him what the box represented. Intrigued, he went to the warehouse where the company kept its archives to see what he could discover about the form. The company was founded in 1937 and the records were preserved all the way back to 1940. He found the old reports, he saw that the zero return had continued uninterrupted for as far back as the records extended. Eventually, he found the box that catalogued all the originals of the forms the company had used during its history dating back to 1940. In it, he found the original report which was created in 1941, in pristine condition. In the top right corner was the mysterious box, with the heading clearly shown ...... 'Number of Air Raids Today.'  Over time, the heading disappeared but the box remained."

Source

Services Management slides updated

I have uploaded a series of slide packs on services management. One of these is a minor update on the slide pack explaining the Services Management Overview. Another is a more extensive change to the Services Quality pack I uploaded a few months ago. Finally there is a new and shorter pack to help with Understanding Service Failure.

These are intended to be available for people to use for educational purposes and are a way of saying thanks to my lecturer. I hope they come in useful.

The Power of Checklists

Harvard surgeon Atul Gawande analyzed their effectiveness in his book The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. What happens when you consistently use checklists use across in an intensive care unit?

The proportion of patients who didn’t receive the recommended care dropped from seventy per cent to four per cent; the occurrence of pneumonias fell by a quarter; and twenty-one fewer patients died than in the previous year. The researchers found that simply having the doctors and nurses in the I.C.U. make their own checklists for what they thought should be done each day improved the consistency of care to the point that, within a few weeks, the average length of patient stay in intensive care dropped by half.



The source for this except is here.