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Concentrate and answer the following 4 questions:

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you say, 'Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?' Wrong Answer.

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend... except one ... Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory. Okay even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4. There is a river you must cross but it is inhabited by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?

Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four year old.

 

 

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Golly are Anderson Consultants still going? Can remember working with them and they came up with pretty much the same solutions as we had been telling management for years. The consultants were great to work with though and still keep in touch with some of them now. Also got two trips to Dallas so definitely worth it. 

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Anderson consultants, six young time and motion types, came to save us all money at EMEB and show us all how it should be done. Following their processes to the letter meant we did less work yet strange to say the figures produced resulted in an increase in production and profit.

Utter nonsense of course and we soon reverted to doing things 'our way'.

Proof, if proof were ever needed, that Taylorism can be counterproductive.

 

Similarly,  BS5750 Total Quality System was 'seamlessly introduced' after a days briefing. It was so seamless, no one had a clue what it was about or how it worked.

There were other 'flavour of the month' systems, usually from some obscure American business guru, that were tried and quickly fell by the wayside.

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We went down the BS5750 route because a lot of our major customers asked if were were registered. I had to tell them that we in the process of implementation. I didn’t want to do it because we were already efficient and highly profitable but I was forced into it. It didn’t cost anything as we discovered there were grants to cover the costs of consultancy. We hired a firm of consultants who talked a lot but didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. After the chief consultant turned up late for a meeting on a third occasion I told in to go away (my words were much more impolite!). The whole thing fizzled out after that and nobody seemed bothered as long as they got their goods on time and at the right price.

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15 hours ago, Brew said:

BS5750 Total Quality System

 

14 hours ago, philmayfield said:

We went down the BS5750 route

Seeing these comments reminded me of my favourite cartoon strip Dilbert by Scott Adams. Google Dilbert Consultants or Dilbert Quality and have a laugh. He has it spot on.

 

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When the boss/owner won't listen - get the consultants in.

When the workforce won't listen - get the consultants in.

It's just a way of impersonalising telling one or the other the obvious!

.........then a third party can be blamed for everything :rolleyes:

 

......bring Harvey in - he will sort it.....

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In the 1990s, the company I worked for thought it a good idea to roll out BS5750 (later ISO9001), and to ensure we complied, they brought in a number of auditors.

 

The day arrived when I was being audited. Everything ok, but I knew there were some issues yet to be checked. Lunchtime arrived so I invited the auditor to join me for a liquid lunch. Four pints later, he was getting slightly wobbly and sped through the rest of his checks.

 

I passed the audit with flying colours.

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Being a consultant is a job for people who aren't very good at whatever it is they talk about.

If they were really good they’d get a proper job and earn money from it; but they can’t, so they just talk about it.

 

The same principle is used for musicians. If you’re any good you make records and sell them; if you aren’t any good at that, you become a music journalist.

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We were told BS5750 originated from the MoD system of procurement and specification. As with most things to do with government planning and organisation it's hardly a surprise it didn't work in the real world.

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I worked for a maintenance company in the 90's that had MOD contracts (via 3rd parties).

They had to adopt BS5750, then later ISO 9001 etc, in order to continue working on those contracts, that meant of course that the whole company including the contract I worked on (not MOD) had to adopt it.

 

In the end it most of the major companies had it as a condition of tendering.

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