Dr. Samuel Culbert, a leading business professor from UCLA, hates performance reviews. “To my way of thinking,” he asserts, “a one-side-accountable, boss-administered review is little more than a dysfunctional pretense [to preserve authority].”
A computer failure in New York’s JFK airport led to huge luggage delays, five cancelled flights and two days of headaches. Airline foul-ups aren’t news, but the words from a company official quoted by Ireland Online are downright frustrating: “She could not estimate when the system will be working again or how many passengers have been affected.”
The Mayor’s Action Center in Indianapolis receives over 200,000 calls each year, mostly to inform local government about issues like broken traffic signals, stray animals, illegal dumping, abandoned vehicles and graffiti. MAC’s work is a massive endeavor and great public service, but according to StarWatch, “they print out Web forms and send them in interoffice mail to the appropriate department.”
As much as 10% of all supermarket food is dumped because it spoils before it can be sold. This amounts to $20 billion in annual waste in America alone. The cause may be from too many choices for consumers.
We have all exchanged a friendly handshake with a stranger when introduced by a mutual friend. For Mark Gurrieri, this experience saved him from a rare and deadly form of brain cancer.
The US is falling behind counterparts in Europe in providing beneficial technology services, according to a study by Computer Associates. The issues are not with product knowledge, expertise or system availability, but the quality of processes.
Paul Brown of the New York Times recently tackled why failure may be better than success. “If everything goes right all the time,” he explains, “you are less likely to try something new.”
Is it unreasonable to say that black holes exist only in outer space? To the disorganized employee, peeved by their own mess, perhaps not. The notion of an ominous vacuum that sucks up everything from emails to files to bagged lunches is not only a plausible argument, but a fantastic scapegoat.
These days, dropping $4 for a cappuccino or two grand for a fancy flatscreen television is a considered a typical purchase, not a wasteful extravagance. Tipping waitstaff 20% or slipping a few extra bucks to a skycap is standard practice. Popular opinion on billable hourly rates for professional services, however, varies from begrudging acceptance to outright mockery. Should we open our wallets or raise our fists?
If you are concerned about productivity in your workplace, you are not alone. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the principal issue with his nation’s economy is “extreme inefficiency.”