Every few years fads change in the centralisation versus decentralisation, as managers search for improvements in service delivery that also deliver cost savings. Most sensible people recognise that this combination of outcomes (better quality, lower costs) can only be achieved in rare circumstances (notably consumer electronics, personal computing). The debate around centralisation / decentralisation can [...]
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Domino’s hits some social media whitewater
Readwriteweb: “In terms of its social media presence, Domino’s Pizza gets a lot of things right. It has a YouTube Channel, a Twitter account, and both a Facebookand MySpace profile. What Domino’s could not plan for, however, was that two of its employees at a North Carolina franchise would use YouTube to broadcast a rather disgusting video that would [...]
READ MOREHarlan County USA
Barbara Kopple talks about her classic Oscar-winning documentary about a violent strike in a coal mining town in Kentucky.
READ MOREDishonesty is contagious
ABSTRACT—”In a world where encounters with dishonesty are frequent, it is important to know if exposure to other people’s unethical behavior can increase or decrease an individual’s dishonesty. In Experiment 1, our confederate cheated ostentatiously by finishing a task impossibly quickly and leaving the room with the maximum reward. In line with social-norms theory, participants’ level [...]
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“Helplessness” expert helps Canberra public servants
I love Senate estimates, Lionel Murphy’s great gift to Australian democracy. Long hours of tedium relieved by the occasional exposure of bureaucratic management folly, of which there is much. So I experienced feelings of joy, delight and unbridled enthusiasm when I saw the vision of some senior bureaucrats explaining why they had spent a million [...]
READ MORE1980s Wendys training video
Wow, let’s get down and funky dudes (warning: may turn you off fast food)
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Book review: Who really won the 2007 election?
Christine Jackman, “Inside Kevin 07″, Melbourne University Press, 2008. Kathie Muir, “Worth Fighting For: Inside the your rights at work campaign”, UNSW Press, 2008. There were two campaigns against the Howard Government in the run-up to the last election: the ALP campaign and the ACTU campaign. These books complement each other insomuch as they provide [...]
READ MORE“Crapping my daks”
A great aussie expression and a weird but wonderful story: A costly workplace blunder has turned into a brush with fame for a Brendale painter. When Clayton Coughlan of Wet Paint-ting at Brendale was contracted to paint a house on the other side of town, he did not think twice about sending his third year [...]
READ MOREProductivity 2.0: is it possible to work smarter?
Productivity 2.0 sounds a lot like the old ‘work smarter’ idea with its proposals to do less but do it better. The problem is convincing people (employers, managers, consumers) that it will work in a world that values output over outcomes (our PM is a victim of this notion). People put quantity above quality when [...]
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