We know everyone is always hungry for new case studies and as mentioned in the last blog we have another on the way but in the meantime John Seddon, the founder of the Vanguard Systems Thinking Method, has released his latest book with 8 new public sector case studies covering:

• Police forces in the Midlands and Cheshire,
• The Fire and Rescue Service in Staffordshire,
• Development Control at Rugby Borough Council,
• Food Safety in Great Yarmouth,
• Legal and Social Welfare Problems (Advice UK),
• Health and Social Care (NHS Somerset),
• and the care of Stroke patients at Plymouth Hospital.

We urge you to take a look. It’s available to buy now direct from the publisher or you can look for it at your local book supplier.

We are also delighted to announce that Stuart Corrigan’s new book, The Need for Change – Four Trends Endangering Every Organisation will be available to buy as a Paperback from the 15th of June.

This short and accessible book will help managers in businesses and the public sector alike to reshape and improve service and results, neatly describing the key problems facing almost every business and how to address them.

Packed with entertaining examples of issues and solutions in action we think it should be required reading for anyone thinking of embarking on:

• a round of cost-cutting
• an outsourcing programme
• making changes to call/contact centres and communications with customers
• a customer satisfaction survey/audit
• or a major reorganisation of service provision

It’s also an excellent, non-technical introduction for anyone interested in the Vanguard Systems Thinking Method and its application in the public or private sector.

You can register advance interest with the publishers, Triarchy Press, and they’ll email you notification as soon as it’s available.

We hope you’ll find benefit from both of these 2 very different books and we welcome your feedback and reviews!

Buy John Seddon’s Case Studies

Register to be notified when Stuart’s book is released

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The most frequent questions I’m asked are as follows: ‘How do you view the role of a manager?’, ‘What makes a great manager?’ and ‘Who have you worked with that was really brilliant?’

In terms of the role of a manager I think it’s really quite simple – to optimise the business. Of course optimise could be applied in a number of different contexts: in the private sector it might be to optimise sales or return on investment and in the public sector it’s undoubtedly to optimise service delivery, costs and morale. When you nail it down it’s really quite simple, anything that contributes to better revenue, better service, lower costs and better morale means that the manager adds value. Anything else (politics, report writing, re-work, 1;1s and most quarterly and annual appraisals) is simply a waste of time, money and energy.

But what makes a great manager? Many can talk a good game, they have their MBA, can use fancy words like ‘governance’ or ‘optimisation’ or ‘sweating the assets’, but ask them exactly what they should do differently and they look as clueless as when a Scotsman is shown the inside of his wallet. So here’s my checklist of great management traits:

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Giving feedback is a crucial part of improving performance at work, but you have to know the right way to give good feedback. And more importantly you also need to know when to give feedback and when feeding back is futile. Read more »

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Jack Jennings walks through dense rain forest in Burma. All around him the earth explodes as rifle fire and grenades hit the ground. Jack is enraged, he clenches his fist in a gesture of defiance; he’s ready to fight back. But Jack can’t fight back because he is 93 years old and his weapon is a walking stick. Read more »

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Sorry it’s been a while since you had a blog. Stuart has so much going on right now helping clients on site that he hasn’t been able to get to the blog, so he’s let me sneak a turn while he’s busy. You’ll recognise the situation. Trying to juggle multiple demands and priorities can be stressful but its part and parcel of our jobs and lives occasionally. The problems come when it’s not just occasionally.

Stuart has covered this topic already in his latest book. If you haven’t seen it yet it’s in the Amazon Kindle store but today I’d like to add a little more by asking you to try Bailey’s job stress score. It’s not long, a single side of paper with just 20 quick questions that you tick yes or no to. Try it out on your staff (please make it anonymous; employees will not be so honest if they fear retribution).  You can download it as a PDF here.

Why bother? Because in 5 minutes you can determine if your work set up is likely to be a large contributing factor to your employee sickness levels, staff turnover and poor performance levels.

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First of all, I’d like to thank all of you who donated to Hope’s charity. You raised £275 for research into stopping Crohns and Ulcerative Colitis.

Then I’d like to officially launch my new book, but first a story.

A year ago, during a meeting with a CEO, I was asked a question which stopped me in my tracks. “What’s it worth to my organisation if I improve my service?” he asked. My initial reaction was that it was a stupid question. “Surely everyone knows” I replied, “better service means more business, lower costs, better brand equity, better morale and greater customer loyalty?” “Yes, but by how much?” he responded.

The question ate away at me, like when you see someone out of context and you just can’t place them. So I decided I wanted to answer it. Read more »

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How has your year been? Do you, like me, like to sit by the fire on Christmas Eve drinking Drambuie and get all melancholy about the highs and the lows? (If not, you should, it’s brilliant, well the alcohol bit is).

On the upside this year has seen us working with amazing clients to deliver phenomenal results. One client has added hundreds of thousands of pounds to their turnover by reducing their lead time to a day. And in another case elderly people waiting on home adaptations and care packages have seen their waiting time reduce so much that the doctors are estimating they’ll get around four more years of independence at home and live longer. That’s why I joined this business, to make a difference and as the A-Team’s leader Hannibal always said, ‘I love it when a plan comes together’. So I’m always massively disappointed when I meet managers who proclaim that they want ‘radical change’ only to realise that their idea of radical was a tiny tweak to their service standards and giving their staff only slightly more attention than number 25 on an advent calendar gets on Christmas morning. On the other hand I never cease to be amazed and delighted by what front line staff can do when given the chance. Read more »

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It’s very cold in Scotland today and there’s lots of snow at my home, lovely but a pain in the neck. On cue my heating broke. I called the number on my gas boiler. Read more »

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"We are card counters at the blackjack table"
Billy Beane – The Oakland Athletics

Five years ago I read a book called Moneyball , and as long as I live I will never forget the core message, in fact it’s one we should all try to take to heart. Read more »

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Following all the positive emails I got after last week’s blog on spotting patterns in your work I’ve decided to do something special.

In the afternoon at the end of our upcoming conference on the 2nd of November I will run a special bonus session explaining in person and in more depth how to utilise this technique to advantage your work. Read more »

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Three years ago, almost to the week, my wife decided to learn French. Four weeks later we were in France and I witnessed her having a conversation, albeit a bit stilted, with a French bloke (who I assume was saying ‘why don’t you ditch the little chubby pale guy and come with me mon Cherie…’).

What bothered me was not that my wife was being chatted up by a Frenchman, after-all they have croissants for breakfast so I reckon I could have taken him, but that Denise was speaking French after only four weeks. She explained that it was ‘no problem’ (you can imagine you were there by saying this in French accent) because she didn’t really learn the language; in-fact she chose to learn the pattern and structure of the language Read more »

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City of Lincoln Council planning department have demonstrated that even in such a tight regulatory environment as planning it is still possible to cut operational costs and improve service.

So, how did they manage it? Read more »

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