Vanguard Scotland

Change of Address Notice

If you've found this blog, like it and want to keep reading new posts, please amble on over to the new address www.systemsthinkingmethod.com/blog Same blog, same person, different address. See you there. Stuart

HR - A Different Perspective

Human Resources means many things to many people, and that variety encompasses the differing needs of businesses and people and cultures, but have you ever considered what HR could be - if it reached it's full potential? Here's an MP3 file of Andy Lippok interviewing the founder of the Vanguard Systems ...

Confused about where to start your Change Programme?

A first meeting with a chief executive normally starts with the same question, ‘we want to make a change but we simply don’t know where to start, any ideas?’ Let’s think about the problem logically, you’d want to make sure that you get the best return on your actions wouldn’t you? ...

The Wrong Sort of Competition

Fabio Capello, the England football manager, was forced to suspend his controversial player ratings website last week amid a storm of criticism from the press. They were upset because there were suggestions that the ill fated scheme might simply be a ruse to make Capello more money, and that ...

Crucial First Meetings

How to handle that all important first management meeting. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been writing about the importance of getting leadership on board before you make a change. You’ve seen what to do to gain the curiosity of those that you want to influence but so far all ...

My Worst Change Management Moment - part 2

First my apologies, I promised this on Tuesday; it’s been a hectic week. Last week you may have read about my early experiences working with senior leaders, if you haven’t, go now to ‘My worst change management moment’. You might remember that the basic premise was that if you want ...

My Worst Change Management Moment

My worst change management moment...and what you can learn from it. If you’ve had anything to do with change maybe you can empathise with this. Exactly nine years ago this month I was working on a consulting assignment with the police - I’ll never forget it. Asked by a senior ...

Problem Solving - Am I allergic to Dolphins?

The family and I were on holiday in Gran Canaria last week. I got sick, I’m a man so trust me I was very sick. As I lay in my bed trying to figure out how I’d got sick I remembered that the last time I was on holiday and ...

Housing is failing, but we don’t learn

The housing regulator is not happy; the service being provided by local authorities and social landlords is not good! For example in 2009 the Scottish Housing Regulator said that just under half of the landlords they had inspected were poor or only just adequate. I’m also fairly certain these problems ...

The Google Slap and what you can learn from it

Google has a clear purpose: To ensure that when folks like us are searching, we have a great (and relevant experience). What’s interesting is that they don’t make money from the searchers, well not directly. They make money from the advertisers (the little ad’s down the side of the Google ...

Improving throughput in public sector planning and casework environments - special report and video

A few weeks ago I wrote about how the Scottish Government had (in my opinion) got the solution to public sector planning badly wrong. (Local Authority Planning - How the government and the lean gurus got it wrong.) They had thought that the matter was merely about getting cases in ...

My best kept secret around sustainable change

I hope that this is one of those blogs that you print off, pass around and mark as important because what I’m about to tell you really is the difference between whether your change programme will flourish and grow or wither away with the passing of time. There are certain ...