Author Archive for Peter A Hunter

Is this BA management completely misreading the way that the workforce feel about the company they work for? Or is this a cynical manoeuvre by management to deflect the blame for the failure of the company?

The workforce are accustomed to management setting unachievable targets and management are accustomed to the workforce failing to achieve their targets, never once doubting that the failure is the fault of the workforce and not the fault of management for setting the target in the first place.

Engaging for Success is a wonderfully promising report. It was commissioned by the then UK Secretary of State for Business in the autumn of 2008 to take an in-depth look at employee engagement. The report, in its introduction, sets itself out to report on the potential benefits of engagement for companies, organisations and individual employees, [...]

We were just leaving a restaurant when we were stopped by an old friend and her husband who were taking the evening sun with a group of friends on the embankment by the river. We had a chat and talk turned to the latest book, how was it doing and for the benefit of the [...]

Last year, BA reported a sharp rise of operating profit to ￡883 million, which in view of the rising fuel price and their falling market share, seemed to be bucking the downward global trend. This year they reported a loss of ￡401 million. Somewhere between the two, reality probably lies, but when has reality ever [...]

We recently watched the Welsh National Opera in Donizetti’s “Elixir of Love.” The story of the “Elixir of Love” is, like the story line of most operas, derived from an older folk tale. In this story we see a shy young man in love with a beautiful wealthy woman. He knows that he has no [...]

Every now and again comes a book that changes the way we think or the assumptions that we make about our lives. One of the greatest assumptions that we make in almost every walk of life is that we can make others work harder by offering them rewards. There is a whole industry dedicated to [...]

Most suggestion schemes consist of a box with a label on it that says “suggestions” and that is what the scheme consists of. Pretty soon the box fills up with banana skins but never any suggestions. The workforce are blamed for the failure of another scheme that could have helped the business and that is [...]

This is the most difficult book it has ever been my extraordinary pleasure to read. For some time now I have, at intervals, come across the influence of this book and have never thought to look for the source or follow up the reference. When I was given a copy of the book I glanced [...]

This is the third article in a three part series on The Credit Crunch. Here are the links to parts 1 and 2 if you have not yet read them.  Part 1: The Credit Crunch: Why it happened? Part 2: The Credit Crunch: What can we learn Since before the late 19th century we have been [...]

This is the second article in a three part series on The Credit Crunch. Here is the link to part 1 if you have not yet read it.  Part 1: The Credit Crunch: Why it happened? In these uncertain times there are going to be some very tough decisions and some very unhappy people, but [...]

We have all been witness to some pretty incredible events over the last couple of months that appear to have generated a new phrase in our language, “the credit crunch”. We can see the effect in the failures of our financial and retail institutions but the question of why it happened, and what we can [...]

What a lot of money we have been wasting on dealing with customer complaints. Instead of dealing with them and attempting to satisfy the customer we should be creating a process that makes complaining more difficult. Then when customers complain they will get a huge negative experience and no satisfaction. This will make them think [...]

Many years ago, in the 15th and 16th centuries there was a part of Great Britain that was as lawless as it gets. This was the region in the North of England/South of Scotland which is now called The Borders. This was good cattle country but it fell between the jurisdiction of the Scottish Kings [...]

Last winter after several years planning we took a trip to Peru. Whilst there we went up into the Andes and, after a decent walk, found ourselves way off the beaten track in the tiny valley of the Rio Rimac, high up in the mountains. At this remote spot we were surprised to see, from [...]