22nd September

James Miller of Abermed

 The story of the development of Abermed Ltd over the past 8 years, from a small Aberdeen company with a turnover of £800,000 to an international company with offices all over the world and a turnover in excess of £14 million.

It is the story not only about the development of the company but also the thinking and philosophy of the company that has enabled it to grow so dramatically.

James Miller held a senior position within his family’s business before moving across to head up the administration of Aberdeen Industrial Doctors. When the opportunity arose he lead the management buy out of the company in 1998. He has been CEO of the company since that time.

 27th October

David Erdal - Democratic Organisations.

The Baxi Partnership structures and funds “all-employee” buyouts. In contrast to “management buyouts” all-employee schemes pass ownership to the whole workforce.  David will detail the challenges and difficulties of all-employee ownership but also the remarkable liberation of shared ownership which properly managed, inspires commitment, productivity, job satisfaction and widely shared prosperity. His story challenges our perception that funding for companies comes from Shares, the Stock Market and equity finance. He questions the basic assumption that a company should be owned by those that provided the capital rather then who have, on a day to day basis, built and sustained the success of the company.

David Erdal studied Chinese at Oxford, then worked as a teacher in Mao’s China. After gaining an MBA at Harvard, he returned to Scotland and led the family paper mill, Tullis Russell, into an all-employee ownership. In 1989 he won the Scottish Business Achievement Award. After obtaining a Ph.D at St Andrews on the philosophy of sharing, he went on to be MD of Baxi Partnership, which structures and funds all-employee buyouts of medium-sized companies. He lives in St Andrews. He is the author of the Book “Local Heroes – How Loch Fyne Oysters Embraced Employee Ownership and Business Success

24th November

The Stock Exchange - How Institutional Shareholders drive the behaviours of Senior Management and Boards  

Paul will lead discussions on how the short term nature of performance reward and the individual nature of that reward can drive behaviours that are directed towards personal gain rather than organisational value. He will further review the evidence in context of the power exercised by institutional shareholders regardless of the management structure and objectives of the businesses in which they hold shares.

  There is also the research from Herriot Watt University that recognised that dealers made money whichever way the market went - up or down. Where they did not make money was when the market was stable.  

 Paul Bowtle is Head of Employee Learning (Community Investment) at the Royal Bank of Scotland

26th Jan 2009

Peter Worthington -“Better Data used in a Better Way”

 Peter will challenge how we  analyse and use the data we collect. He is likely to be critical of the standard tabulated data of most management reports.  From the recognition that variation exists all around us he will help us filter out expected and unexpected variation and enhance our skills at gaining an accurate meaning from data.  If as managers we misinterpret measures then the likelihood is that our actions will worsen the situation.

He is also likely to challenge the misconception that “if you cannot measure it you cannot manage it”

Peter Worthington, a professional statistician, developed his interest in Dr Deming's management philosophy in the early 1980s, he established the Central Quality Improvement Network at Keele University. He has worked with  Michelin Tyre (UK) plc., 3M (UK), The Employment Service, Tandberg Data (Oslo),British Rail, Coca-Cola Schweppes Beverages, Compaq Computers, Rolls Royce Aerosystems, Belfast Hospitals, etc

His particular expertise includes the Strategic Deployment of Improvement, the Design of Experiments, the Application of Statistical Thinking to Management Processes, Statistical Process Control in non-manufacturing and manufacturing processes and Process Improvement Methods.

He is the co-author of “Distribution-Free Statistics” published by Allen-Unwin  Co-authored with Dr Henry Neave formerly of Nottingham University. He developed the successful commercial software WinChart™  for SPC.

23rd February

Dr John Carlilse – How we Learn

John, an international thought leader, will challenge our perceptions of how we and our organisations learn. He will open out the issue of epistemology, which in lay man’s terms is looking at the source, nature and limitations of the knowledge of individuals and organisations and from this basis how they develop and learn.

The slides John used can be viewed on JCslides

A recoding of the presentation was made by Cameron Ramsay of Cogna - you can access this page from JCrecording

John Carlisle was born in Zambia and now lives in Sheffield. He is a Visiting Professor at Sheffield Hallum Univiversity.  He is a recognised authority in partnering and his authoritative book 'Beyond Negotiation',co-authored with Bob Parker, was endorsed by Dr W. Edwards Deming. His partnering work began in the North Oil and Gas sector, and then transferred to the construction sector at the request of Sir Michael Latham and the Reading Construction Forum. Today his ex-company, JCP, is the biggest provider of Partnering implementations in Europe , to the value of £3 billion per annum, and are the acknowledged experts in this sector, world-wide.

He has worked with Railtrack, British Nuclear Fuels, Shell, Hong Kong Mass Tansit Rail Corp. De Beers and Anglo American. He also has vast experience with the Public sector, in particular the training Parliamentary Undersectaries of HMG, The Prison Service, Australian Department of Defence, etc

John Carlisle is the founder and chairman of the charity Ashby Manor Project, a Trust set up on his farm in Queenstown, South Africa, which is a family and community centre for AIDS victims.

Jacqui Roberts Chief Executive of The Care Commision

Regulation and Learning and Improvement: Can we have our cake and eat it? 

The Care Commission spends £30M a year employing 600 staff to regulate 15 000 organisations providing services for 320 000 people in Scotland.  She will speak candidly about her work which has to take account of the challenges of combining regulation with the drive for improvement.  What do service users, politicians and the public want? 

Some long term friends of the Deming Learning Network work in organisations which come under the regulation of the Commission so we are looking forward to some informed dialogue and insight. 

27th April

John Raven

It was Adam Smith's vision more than 250 years ago that we could create a society that is continually learning without the need for central direction - which he envisaged was the "market economy." This never materialised, in fact our society, especially on the financial side, is controlled by a surprisingly few number of people - all working for their own self interest. Similar concerns can be expressed in the public sector where the trend to centralised control has been accelerating over the past few years.

Current centralised, hierarchical and bonus orientated arrangements are having massive impact, not only on our daily lives and well being, but also the whole environment.

What we need is a new set of organisational theories, a new way of thinking about issues that govern our lives.

There is no doubt that John's challenges to our thinking will stay with us for many years to come - do join us from a thoroughly stimulating evening.

A summary of what John hopes to cover can be found at http://www.eyeonsociety.co.uk/events/DLN27April.pdf 

John Raven has, for 35 years, been involved in policy evaluation and the development of the tools and arrangements required to run society effectively. Much of his work has been in the educational area, the evaluation of socio- economic policy, and the evaluation and improvement of the politico-bureaucratic structures and arrangements required to give teeth to information. Dr. Raven has been a consultant to the World Bank and the governments of England and Wales, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Pakistan, and China.

In addition to his work in these countries, he has, with colleagues, conducted research in the USA, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, India, Malaysia, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.

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