The Vice-Chancellor's Lecture Series: Systems Thinking for Service Organisations. February 16, 2011

The fourth lecture in the 2010/11 Vice-Chancellor's Lecture Series will be given by Professor John Seddon, Managing Director of Vanguard Consulting. Professor Seddon will speak on Systems Thinking for Service Organisations.

About the Lecture

We, mankind, invented management; conventional management doesn't work very well; we can change it.

John Seddon has devoted his career to helping service organisations change from a conventional command-and-control design to a systems design. The results are always astonishing - beyond anything that might have been put in a plan and are achieved without any planning - just one of many counterintuitive realisations.

You would think that with a long track-record of profound results, everyone would be doing it. But the hurdle is that managers must be prepared to 'unlearn' before they learn; they will learn to accept that everything they believed about management is flawed - a tall order.

John will illustrate many of the counterintuitive truths that wait to be discovered by managers of service organisations. For example:

* Cost is in flow, not transactions (it illustrates why out-sourcing transactions to 'low-cost' suppliers fails)
* Understanding demand is the greatest lever for improvement (managers wrongly assume that all demand is work to be done and miss this huge opportunity)
* Performance is governed by the system (hence people management practices are next to worthless)
* Standardisation should be avoided (it drives up costs and worsens service)

John will also explain the Vanguard Method; studying service organisations as systems enables managers to get knowledge (unlearning and learning) as the prerequisite for effective, significant and sustainable change.

About John Seddon

John is visiting professor at Cardiff, Derby and Hull Universities and Managing Director of Vanguard Consulting.

Service organisations following his ideas are achieving profound improvements in service, efficiency and morale. John has been a long-term critic of the UK's public-sector 'reform programme', arguing that reforms (targets and other specifications) make performance worse.

John is the author of "Freedom from Command and Control" and "Systems Thinking in the Public Sector", both available from www.systemsthinking.co.uk.

The lecture will be held on Tuesday 8 March 2011 in Lady Hale Lecture Theatre commencing at 17:30 and is open to staff, students, alumni and supporters of the University.

We recommend that you pre-register to reserve your place as tickets are limited. On completion of the registration process your e-ticket will be sent to the email you have provided. Please bring your e-ticket to the event.

Official Website: http://www.salford.ac.uk/events/details/1428