Season 3 – Episode 20: With John Seddon
Welcome to the 100th episode of A Job Done Well—where we celebrate the art of calling out corporate nonsense and replacing it with something that actually works. This week, we’re joined by John Seddon, a management thinker so influential he’s got his own Wikipedia page (unlike James, who may or may not have written his own). John’s spent decades proving that traditional management—targets, incentives, standardisation—doesn’t just fail to improve performance; it actively makes things worse.
John’s approach is simple: stop incentivising the wrong things. Most organisations reward behaviours that undermine their own goals. Engineers rushed to fix boilers in 15 minutes? They’ll be back six times a year. Call centre agents hitting sales targets? They’re hanging up on customers who won’t buy. Incentives don’t drive performance—they drive gaming, cheating, and a race to the bottom.
Highlights include:
- Why failure demand—work caused by previous errors—is crippling your team (and how to spot it).
- How to redesign systems so your team can actually use their judgment (instead of following scripts).
- The Aviva case study: How blending call centres boosted capacity by 20%—without adding staff.
- Why specialisation is a myth, and how it’s costing you more than you think.
- How to make your boss curious about what’s really going wrong.
If you’ve ever watched your team chase targets while the real work piles up, this episode is your wake-up call. John’s not here to sell you a quick fix—he’s here to help you burn the rulebook and start again.
Key Points:
- Incentives create perverse outcomes—people game the system, not improve it.
- Failure demand is a symptom of a broken system, not lazy staff.
- Specialisation sounds efficient but creates silos, inefficiency, and frustration.
- Redesign systems around customer purpose, not internal targets.
- Leaders won’t change unless you make them curious—show, don’t tell.
John Seddon developed the Vanguard Method, starting in 1987. It combines systems thinking and intervention theory to transform organisations.
Its purpose is to change management thinking, allowing leaders to design more effective services that yield fast, tangible, and sustainable performance results. Seddon identified ‘failure demand’ (demand caused by a failure to do something correctly for the customer/citizen the first time) as a feature of conventional service design, and the Vanguard Method is the means to eliminate it.
Applied globally across sectors—from private (telecoms, finance) to public and third (health, emergency services)—it has produced remarkable results.
Private sector applications lead to customer-shaped services, transforming customer satisfaction and staff morale while increasing profits.
In people-centred systems (public/third sector), the method significantly reduces costs and, crucially, improves lives by designing services that work. This not only eliminates failure demand but also reduces overall demand, leading to happier people and stronger communities.
Learn more at https://beyondcommandandcontrol.com
[00:00:03] James: Hello, I’m James. Jimmy: Hi, I’m Jimmy, and welcome to A Job Done Well, the podcast that helps you improve your performance—and enjoyment—at work.
[00:00:15] James: Good afternoon. How you doing? Jimmy: I’m doing well, James. How are you? James: I’m fabulous, thank you very much. What are we talking about today then? Jimmy: Well, today we have a special guest, John Seddon, a genuine management guru. He’s written seven bestselling books, unlike James, who’s written one—albeit a bestseller for over-50s interested in process improvement. James: It got to number one. Just saying.
[00:01:15] Jimmy: More on that later, but today is our 100th episode. James: Amazing. I read a stat: podcasts with over 100 episodes have 20 times more listeners. So we’re expecting 60 now. Jimmy: That’s more than just you and me.
[00:01:56] James: Anyway, enough trumpet-blowing. John, delighted to have you. Would you mind introducing yourself? John: Sure. I’m an occupational psychologist. In the 1980s, I audited a failing TQM program and became influenced by systems thinking. My career has focused on how to run service organisations as systems, not command-and-control nightmares. This year, I’m writing about productivity and growth—because the government keeps talking about it, and I’ve spent decades helping organisations actually achieve it.
[00:03:17] Jimmy: The Telegraph once called you a “reluctant management guru.” Where did that come from? John: I told Philip Johnson the credit belongs to my clients. My job is to help them see what’s wrong with conventional management—everything they know—and how to run their organisation as a system. But the credit’s theirs.
[00:03:50] Jimmy: Our audience is mostly middle managers, frustrated and wanting to improve their teams’ performance and enjoyment. What’s your overarching advice? John: If you’re in a service organisation run on command-and-control lines—targets, standard times, service levels—there are better ways. But be warned: this is counterintuitive. People have been fired for talking this language. At Aviva, a director got sacked for blogging about it. Later, after we redesigned their system, they rehired him to roll it out globally. So study carefully, and find ways to get others to study too.
[00:06:08] Jimmy: How is it counterintuitive? John: Take Aviva’s call centres: front and back offices, activity-managed, standard times. I said, “Train the front end to handle all customer demand, and you won’t need a back office.” They thought I was mad—“Too expensive!” But that’s how they think: easy work vs. hard work. We proved it worked.
[00:07:14] James: Why is specialisation wrong? John: It’s a trap. In call centres, they specialise to cut training costs. But if you understand demand from the customer’s point of view, you can blend call centres. Every time you merge one, capacity improves by 20%. We didn’t predict it—it just happened.
[00:11:47] Jimmy: If I’m a middle manager, how do I start changing how I operate? John: Study demand. In transactional services, demand is the big lever. At Aviva, 70% of demand was “failure demand”—caused by failing to do something right for the customer. Managers often dismiss it as “normal.” But failure demand is a symptom of a broken system. Your job is to change the system conditions.
[00:14:45] Jimmy: How do I make leaders curious about this? John: Don’t tell them—show them. Set up a book club, hijack management development, or let them listen to calls. If you show them top performers cheating the system to hit targets, they’ll see the problem. Then, design experiments to test new ways of working.
[00:18:06] James: It’s all about incentives screwing things up. John: Exactly. Incentives always get you less. People work for the incentive, not the purpose.
[00:18:46] Jimmy: What if I’m stuck in the middle of the organisation? John: Find a leader who cares about customers and productivity. Pitch a proof of concept: take a small team, feed them the same demand, and let them work differently. Measure the results. If it’s better, leaders will notice.
[00:23:14] Jimmy: What else should middle managers do? John: Focus on the proof of concept. Show it’s feasible, better for customers, and cheaper. Then scale it. But remember: HR, finance, and IT are part of the old system. They’ll need to change too.
[00:25:09] Jimmy: What system constraints should managers look at? John: Controls. Activity as cost: calls per day, visits per engineer, time per task. These controls create failure demand. In healthcare, protocols stop personalised care. The system conditions are the problem.
[00:26:24] Jimmy: How do I improve my team’s judgment? John: Get them to study the system end-to-end from the customer’s point of view. When they see the whole picture, they’ll realise the system—not them—is the problem. That unleashes creativity.
[00:28:39] John: Design experiments with measures. Build the capability to learn into what you’re doing.
[00:29:13] Jimmy: Organisations get fixated on speed targets. John: Measures must relate to the system’s purpose from the customer’s point of view. Manage value, not cost. The paradox? When you manage value, costs go down.
[00:30:39] James: Let’s summarize: Get clear on your department’s purpose—for the customer. Measure success by that purpose. Redesign the system to remove controls that stop good judgment. Set up a proof of concept, not a pilot. Get leaders curious. And show follow-through to galvanise your team.
[00:32:41] John: That’s it. James: Nailed it. Jimmy: Thank you, John, for being our reluctant management guru.
[00:33:03] Outro: If you’ve got unhappy customers, spiralling costs, or a big IT project that’s failing to deliver, get in touch: jimmy@jobdonewell.com or james@jobdonewell.com.
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