The misconception about employee empowerment
Lesson Learned #48
It's not as popular in management discussions as it once was, but every so often we hear ...
52 Lessons Learned
It’s easy to lose sight of the purpose
The backstory on 52 Maxims was that we worked for The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. for a number of years; during that time were introduced to their concept known as “The Basics” that consisted of 18 fundamentals of service, which they used as daily reminders for their staff.
The danger of assumptions
One of our senior partners once had a sales meeting with an executive for a company headquartered in London, England. The executive had a beautiful office with a stunning view of Trafalgar Square.
The problem with industry experts
Lesson Learned #30
American psychologist Abraham Maslow was reportedly an optimist, famous for his hierarchy of ...
Too many good ideas
Lesson Learned #24
Here's a joke we often hear: Consultants take your watch, tell you what time it is, and then ...
Addition is easier than subtraction
Lesson Learned #31
It’s a lot easier to add cost when times are good than it is to reduce cost when times are ...
Actually, you do need to reinvent the wheel
Despite the apparent wisdom of not trying to reinvent the wheel, we've actually learned over the years that it is vital for most businesses to do exactly that.
Operations needs to own the project
Many companies have corporate improvement teams of one kind or another, such as quality or Lean or Six Sigma or some combination. And sometimes they bring in outside consultants to serve a similar role.
Too many reports, too little time
Lesson Learned #8
When we work for an organization we always look closely at how managers plan, execute the plan ...
Clients Don’t Care What Consultants Think
Lesson Learned #4
One of the key things clients expect in a performance improvement project is that their ...
Learning through observation
People are often curious about how we can go into such a wide variety of organizations and businesses and somehow help them improve. One advantage we have is that we tend to see similar patterns over and over across industries and even across nationalities.
The emotional roller coaster (of change management programs)
During a change program, everyone goes through a real emotional roller coaster. You tend to be a little overly optimistic at the front end