Business Guru Turns Video Star For Full House Talk
11 February 2010
Professor John Seddon, business guru and Visiting Professor at the University of Derby.
Managers can only make a change from conventional 'command-and-control' management to systems management through informed choice. But once they 'get it' they never give it up. It is, quite simply, a better way to make the work work
”John Seddon
A talk by an internationally known management guru proved so popular the University of Derby had to run a live video link to a neighbouring lecture theatre, to accommodate numbers.
Around 300 people - many of them from key Derbyshire companies - booked to see the inaugural lecture by Professor John Seddon, expert in 'systems thinking' and a University Visiting Professor, at its Kedleston Road site in Derby last night (Wednesday February 10).
His talk - entitled Systems Thinking: A Better Way To Make The Work Work - filled the University Courtoom, where such events are normally held, and extra places were then used in a neighbouring lecture theatre. A live video link was set up between the two.
The last time this happened was in 2005 when TV and radio broadcaster, writer and novelist Melvyn Bragg delivered the University's annual Arkwright Lecture.
Professor Seddon is an occupational psychologist and management thinker, a consultant with European business consultancy Vanguard, and a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Business, Computing and Law at the University of Derby.
His method is to remind organisations that people invented the concept of 'management' and that we need to reinvent it, as conventional management is working - but not very well.
His key advice is that this change begins with a company or organisation's management being prepared to change the way they think about the design and management of work.
To help managers change Professor Seddon has developed methods so they can study their organisations from a different point of view. This often reveals that much of what they thought of as 'good practice' is anything but.
People who follow his ideas achieve levels of improvement in performance for their organisation that they would never have considered achievable.
Professor Seddon said: "This is one reason why managers should give up plans.
"Managers can only make a change from conventional 'command-and-control' management to systems management through informed choice. But once they 'get it' they never give it up. It is, quite simply, a better way to make the work work".
Gino Franco - Administrative Leader for the Systems Thinking and Organisational Change Research Group (Sytoc) at the University, which Professor Seddon is also part of - added: "John Seddon has continued to be a huge draw for the University of Derby, since we established our relationship with him some five years ago. The excellent turnout last night emphasised the interest that is shown in his ideas.
"Public and private sector organisations who engage in systems thinking gain increasing credibility, with the processes bringing clear and dramatic improvements in customer satisfaction and business performance in these financially straitened times.
"People who attended last night's discussion would have been inspired to take forward his ideas and make a difference within their own organisations."
Future inaugural lectures hosted by the University in 2010 will include:
Three Major Tools In Intelligent Engineering And Systems on Wednesday March 3, by Professor Mian Hong Wu; Geological Maps And The World Beneath Your Feet by Visiting Professor Poul Strange, on Wednesday May 5.
To book a free seat at a lecture through the University's online system go to website www.derby.ac.uk/events or contact Angela Drinkwater in the University Marketing Department on 01332 591046.
For further media information please contact Press and PR Officer Sean Kirby on 01332 591891 or 07876 476103, or email s.kirby@derby.ac.uk.
