...attempting to stand on their shoulders
A recurring theme, as felt by me as a ‘customer’ of many services, is that the front-line person (apparently) ‘helping me’ with my need(s) has treated me like an idiot. I’d expect that this has been experienced by most of you. The front-line ‘helper’ has (subconsciously) slipped into ‘you’re an idiot’ mode because it’s sooo … Continue reading Beware wearing ‘inside-out’ spectacles
A chance conversation causes me to post this short sketchy brain fart (a partially formed idea in my little head) that I wrote ages ago… Before the 1990s – before we had information technology (IT) – large service organisations operated with distributed branches of people working on paper files. In this model, we had: So, … Continue reading The wrong answer to the problem
I hear a recurring mantra from conventional operations management within relational service organisations. I’ve been hearing it for years. That mantra is the (apparent) necessity for ‘consistency across the front line’. It often starts with decrying that “we’ve got 1,0001 [front line workers] and 1,000 ways of doing things. We can’t have that, we need … Continue reading On Consistency
…nor in your (leading1) measures of success. Short post time… Context: I regularly participate in reflective conversations with people. I often ask them to ponder the question “what is the purpose of your organisation (or part thereof)?” and I’m struck by how often the response includes something about “our reputation”2 (as in gaining, bolstering, or … Continue reading ‘Reputation’ has no place in…
A short ‘Friday post’: A lot is talked, and written, about ‘Purpose’1. If a group of humans decide to organise and spend time and resources to achieve [something], then – if they genuinely want this – they ought to define the ‘what’ and ‘why’ so that the network of actions and interactions have a chance … Continue reading Mork and POSIWID
I recently finalised a ‘measurement of performance’ guide and, within this, I explain various archetypes of services, and the types of measures that best fit each. I’m particularly interested in relational services – the big hairy ‘social system’ ones that (should) really matter for the most vulnerable and ‘in need of help’ humans. Most societies … Continue reading On ‘engagement’ as a useful…
I’ve worked with several service organisations that have adopted (what are referred to as) Tiered service models for their service design…and I’ve written about some of the problematic implications. Some specific recent posts to mention in this regard are: The Supermarket Shelf analogy; ‘Bob the Builder’: Push vs. Pull analogy; and The ‘Spaghetti notes’ phenomenon. … Continue reading Thoughts on:…
‘Triage’ is a word that I’ve heard used a lot within large human-designed social systems. But where does this word come from, and is its (newer) ‘service system’ usage reasonable…or does it hide/confuse/obfuscate? Starting with the dictionary: “Triage: the process of quickly examining sick or injured people, for example after an accident or a battle, … Continue reading What’s in a word? Triage…
I regularly hear these title words around me – or words to that effect – and, depending on my mood, this makes me smile…or groan. They are the recurring ‘message’ sung out from many senior figures in organisations and then ‘cascaded down’ …and then informally kicked ‘around and around’. And my main reflection on hearing … Continue reading “We need to move faster!”
I recently wrote a measurement guide and a hugely important (and definitely too short) section within is titled ‘Beware the allure of measurement’. Unfortunately, our working worlds seem to be obsessed with measurement, to the detriment of getting on with doing obvious things. So I was very happy to read a LinkedIn post by a … Continue reading An obsession with measurement