Who is in charge is a question that comes up a lot at work in all
types of organisations. At one stage in my management career I was
responsible for 83 Nursing and Residential care Homes. Before we
changed their job titles each Home had an Officer in Charge. This type
of institutional care regularly throws up scandals involving abuse and
neglect and routinely involves allegations of...
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Your blogs - Blair McPherson
Blair
McPherson
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26 May 2022 - 14:27
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25 May 2022 - 20:49
It’s interesting to hear what those at the top of organisations say
about the best career advice they were given. Although on reading some
of that advice I think if the individual followed it then they must
have been a challenge to manage. Howard Davies chairman of the NatWest
Group is quoted as saying the best career advice he’s been given,”
Always show you could do your boss’s job...
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19 May 2022 - 15:59
Metaphors are used to capture attention and explain complex things by
comparing them to something familiar to the audience. The business
metaphors chosen often have nothing new to say and are just a
different way of saying it.
These metaphors tends to look for parallels when we would learn more
by focusing on the troubling differences. Military metaphors are
common but business is...
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17 May 2022 - 16:20
It’s about working in a difficult environment, finding strong forces
working against you and having to use up a lot of energy to make slow progress.
This can happen in any organisation at any level from the employee
with a really good idea and an unreceptive manager to the Chief
Executive dealing with an influential group within the board. It could
be an HR team trying to push the...
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09 May 2022 - 06:48
In Catch 22 wounded officers in hospital are given enlisted men’s
letters to redact of any sensitive military detail. Some of the
letters are to girl friends back home and are very sexually graphic
but most are from sons to mothers and are very dull. The officers
quickly become board with the task and devise ways of making it more
interesting. Like redacting every forth word, or every...
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09 May 2022 - 02:47
null Gogglebox
People watching other people watch television! Celebrity Gogglebox.
People watching celebrities watching television. I read
the,”inspiration “ for Gogglebox came from the innovative comedy,The
Royal Family, which is set in someone’s sitting room from where we
watch a family sitting watching the television! The difference is that
The Royal Family is a carefully scripted social...
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06 May 2022 - 15:59
Queuing is never far from the headlines these days but usually it’s
about the waiting lists for NHS operations, the length of waiting
times in A&E or the queuing of ambulances outside hospitals. This
news item was about the practice of queuing for someone else. I first
heard of it in India where the simple act of buying a railway ticket
could involve queueing for hours or even...
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07 Jun 2022 - 07:04
“ Where everyone of us has the chance to make a mark and shape the
future. Where senior managers are a catalyst for this change.
Energising the people who can make it happen. At the centre of
everything you will inspire passion. You instil courage. You bring
the heart of a leader. “
It’s an advert for the organisation’s top post. It’s an advert
that tells you what...
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wrote a new blog post
09 May 2022 - 02:51
null Snooze and you lose
Those who need five hours or less sleep a night are more successful
than those who need eight hours or more. Less sleep gives you more
time to do things and being more productive makes you more successful.
Research around what makes a successful business person or
political leader has identified a correlation with the amount of sleep
they claim to need. From interviews and...
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17 May 2022 - 14:36
It says much about modern society that a computer requires me to
prove I am not a computer to progress with an interaction! If
computers need help to distinguish between humans and computers does a
computer realise it is a computer? I compute therefore I am.
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02 Jan 2023 - 02:24
null Spread it thinly
It was a debate between the merits of butter v margarine in terms of a healthy diet. The dairy farmer argued butter was a totally natural product so had to be better for you. His counterpart argued that research had shown that alternatives to butter such as those made with olive oil reduced the risk of heart disease. The interviewer then turned to the medical spokes person from the...
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wrote a new blog post
15 Apr 2022 - 14:41
Post pandemic and the Great Resignation people are even more likely
to turn down the opportunity of a management/senior management post
because of inadequate resources , unrealistic targets and relentless pressure.
I asked someone I managed if they had thought about applying for
a management vacancy that was currently being advertised. No they
said. I asked why not since they had...
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12 Apr 2022 - 08:48
To those who don’t want feedback. To those who avoid training. To
those who say I have been doing the job for years there’s nothing you
could tell me I don’t already know. To those who claim it’s all just
basic common sense. To those who think there are no new ideas, no
better ways of doing things, no such thing as best practice and no
need for inspections. I say you must be the...
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27 May 2022 - 09:54
The difference between an NHS manager and a LA/ SSD manager is
significant when considering the integration of health and social care
and I believe has been under explored when considering the reasons for
frustratingly slow progress. So here goes a rather undiplomatic
account of over 30 years trying to make it work.
As a new manager in Social Services I was quickly exposed to my
...
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03 Apr 2022 - 09:50
In some organisations HR doesn’t have a seat at the top table. In
many organisation HR don’t feel they have the status or influence
their expertise and contribution warrants. But this isn’t about those
organisations this is about what happens when an ambitious new chief
executive hires a ruthless head of HR with the intention of taking
complete control of the organisation. Board...
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28 Mar 2022 - 10:33
A complaint is only a complaint if it is a formal complaint and is
only a formal complaint if the word, “ formal” is used other wise it
is not recorded as a complaint because it has been dealt with
informally. Managers are expected to try and deal with complaints
informally as such they are enquires, issues raised or concerns not
complaints. We haven’t had any complaints.How do you...
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25 Mar 2022 - 12:37
The latest example of bullish Senior management thinking is from the
Chief Executive of P&O who in a Commons hearing said there was no
point in consulting because , “ no Union could accept our
proposals”. This is not the first time I have heard a Chief Executive
state there is no point in consulting employees because we know they
won’t agree but we are doing it any way....
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23 Mar 2022 - 13:02
The dolphins kept it simple when they left the planet just as it was
about to be destroyed to make way for a space super highway.
(Hitchhikers’ Guid to the Galaxy).
Keep it simple is good advice for the standard resignation email.
Just announce your giving in your notice, you’ve enjoyed working here,
even if you haven’t, you appreciate the support provided., even if it
was in short...
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21 Mar 2022 - 16:42
It’s the 50 th anniversary of The Godfather probable the most famous
and many would say the best film about the mafia. Films and t.v.
series set in the world of organised crime are often referred to in
articles to illustrate the principles of effective business thus
spicing up what otherwise might be rather dull academic accounts. In
any discussion about leadership, strategy,...
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15 Mar 2022 - 11:21
Shouting ,swearing, ridiculing and “losing it big time” not as a one
off or isolated experience but as a daily occurrence, a regular
feature of the way the manager behaves would be unacceptable and
considered bullying in most organisations.
But how hard can you push someone to deliver, how high can you set
your expectations and how critical can you be before it is considered bullying?...
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