Despondency or Despair
With adults 45+ having the fastest growing suicide rate and the highest rates of hazardous drinking in most Western countries, this topic is difficult to write about. Despondency or despair …
Do We Repair or Do We Build?
Repairing things: cars, motorcycle engines, people, organisations is very different from building something from scratch. The mechanic or doctor, consultant or manager “deals with failure every day whereas the builder …
Coping and the Fibonacci Sequence
Today I want to talk about coping. Traditionally, the word has a slightly negative connotation, it suggests an underlying struggle that we perhaps not deal with. But I’d like to …
Aloneness and Loneliness
There is a subtle difference between aloneness and loneliness. The first is healthy, it reflects a comfort with our own company and an inner calm. It comes from a position …
Uncertainty and Productivity
A friend and I were talking about uncertainty and before it lurched to Heisenberg we discussed its relevance to management. Taleb’s “Antifragile” is a nice approach to uncertainty in “a …
Productivity and Emotional Balance
Productivity in manufacturing is affected by Taiichi Ohno’s Seven Wastes: overproduction waiting transporting inappropriate processing unnecessary inventory unnecessary / excess motion defects The elimination of these wastes lies behind most …
Trust and Interference
There is a lovely story about a young boy and a lost horse. One day a horse turned up on a farm. No-one knew from whence it came nor who …
Social Consequences of Firm-level Automation
Digital disruption, driverless cars, process automation, robotics in the workplace. All symptoms of technological advancement and achievement and all to be hailed. But… Let’s have a look at the century …