What can we do?  There is one resource that is finite.  That is Time.  Roger Allen wrote a seminal book “Winnie-the-Pooh on Management”, (this does exist!). He quotes Pooh Bear saying, ‘But you can’t manage time – time just is”.  And that is the problem.  Time can only be allocated and prioritised for tasks.  You can’t make more of it.  Yes, you can work all 8760 hours in a year, if you don’t do anything but work. However, you would expire without sleep and food, and more stuff will have magically worked its way into your ‘To Do’ list anyway.

So, where do we start in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of our time utilisation?

You could make an efficient start by attending the last session at the eFin User Group at Twickenham on 10th September. We will be looking at Time Logs, some frightening statistics, job analysis, prioritising, Air Traffic Control and some personal anecdotes.  You will leave with some tips and ideas to help you gain more for less.  You will need to start with some self analysis.  We need to understand how we currently use our time to be able to change (if needs be). You will be receiving a Time Log next week to fill in before you come to the event.  We already know that some of you will not find time to do this!  As well as that, you will find some ideas in the next two blogs.  The first will look at the time wasters we all have to live with and what we can do about them. The next will consider some of the good habits we need to develop to fix this exemplary behaviour into our busy schedules.

Look forward to meeting you in September.
Phil Hawthorn

More or less? is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

At a visceral level the latter seems true. If we get into problems then its’s good to know there is a professional on board who will know what to do.  On the other hand sometimes it is the professionals in the cockpit who cause the problems in the first place.  This happened last year to the Boeing 737-500 Aeroflot-Nord plane flying into Perm in Siberia, where a heady mix of alcohol and inexperience led to the mis-reading of an indicator.  The result: 88 deaths.  Or the extraordinary mid air collision in Brazil between a Embraer Legacy 600 and a Boeing 737-800. Here the pilots of the executive jet, both trained to Captain level, switched off (though it was never proved that was deliberate)  the transponders that tell other planes where they are.  They were also told to fly at 36,000 feet, an instruction they simply ignored. The result: 155 deaths.

How does this relate to business.  When we look at the great business crashes of the last few years we see men (yes, it does always seem to be men!) such as Chuck Prince of Citibank, Fred Goodwin of Royal Bank of Scotland, Stan O’Neal of Merrill Lynch and Dick Fuld of Lehman Brothers.

When we read about these collapses we see very human mistakes, mistakes that go to the core of what it means to be human, the need to feed swollen egos, the way that our triumphs always seem extraordinarily great and very dependant on our actions and our disasters, in contrast very small and usually down to extraneous factors. There is a fatal fault at the heart of a lot of business thinking and I think that it can be summed up simply as ‘Just because we have the capacity for rational thought and behaviour doesn’t mean that we actually act that way’.

The indicators in their cockpits would have shown some worrying numbers.  There would have been, and in the case of RBS, we know there was serious doubts raised.  But the pilot will have over ridden these indicators, because he knows best.  He is uniquely placed to take the whole thing to its destination and the crew and the passengers are really just there for the ride.

What if these decisions were taken out of the hands of the executives and their ability to execute the take-over of another bank was damped down by the system, just like the Airbus ‘fly-by-wire’ approach.  What would we lose by this?  The pilot changes from being a dashing heroic figure to that of a train driver.  A valuable job, but one that carries a less impressive uniform and cap. The CEO changes from being the swash buckling entrepreneur and leader of men to, well,  I am not sure what.  Maybe the person who keeps an eye on things just to make sure that nothing is about to crash.  A person who ensures that the processes are working throughout the organisation. A person who spends time with the people in the front line finding out how the world looks to the people delivering the services and what customers actually think of those services. No longer the centre of puff pieces in the pink pages. Think of the paper, ink and journalist time saved.

Often when clients tell me they want to make better decisions, backed by business intelligence data, I often have a wry smile and think of the pilots.  Despite all the decision supporting software they have, making their lives and the lives of their passengers safer, you just know left to their own devices that they would just love to be flying by the seat of their pants.

It’s not just the pilots though, even when we are herded onto our budget air flight,  sitting cramped in our seat, consuming our mechanically recovered re-formed chicken meal, we still feel uplifted when the pilot comes on the intercom to tell us how the weather is in our destination.  There is a symbiotic relationship between how dangerous and risky the venture is, or appears to be, and how much we value the man in charge.  I was on a flight to Newquay in Cornwall, where after 2 aborted landings the pilot got a spontaneous round of applause from the people on board when he landed on the third attempt.  That must be good for his ego and his Serotonin levels.  Who would not be tempted to increase the feeling of danger, when the upside is so high. After all, when did the driver of the 52 to Willesden Green last get cheered.

What can the crash of Air France AF447 tell us about business intelligence? is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment