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If organizations just adopt management improvement practices I firmly believe customer service, financial performance and employee satisfaction could be improved. This was a big part of the reason I started to use the internet to share management improvement ideas back in 1996 (plus I find management improvement interesting).
On the note of making a difference in people’s lives. I have had far more people tell me how my father (Bill Hunter) made a huge difference in their lives (far more than ever tell me anything like that). Now there is the sensible explanation, that he actually had a big impact on people’s lives (but you also have to figure most of those people never saw me so the chance for them to say anything didn’t exist…). I believe far more people told me (after he died) than ever told him, which says something about psychology in the USA, I think. But I don’t really know what people told him - so I could be wrong about that.
Anyway the point of this is that many people have told me their life was significantly changed by working with him on management improvement initiatives (mechanics talking about how he changed the workplace they had been in for years, people who saw that they could contribute more and changed careers, managers that realized how much damage they had done but now were on the right track…). There was obviously a great deal of emotion for many people. And it was largely about applying concepts like Deming’s management system, Toyota Management practices, statistics (yes even that)… and his ability to talk to everyone and make them comfortable (tons of people mentioned this - that this university professor would ask me questions and talk to me like a person, not talk down to me and be interested in my answers and…). As I continue through life I realize that this management improvement stuff really can matter if done right.
I have grown to enjoy maintaining the management improvement resources and other Curious Cat web sites but this is the reason I started and continued these efforts over the years. Today there is a great amount of useful management information online - but for years the pickings were quite slim.
Photo is of Dad and me a few years ago. Related: Quality in the Community: Madison, WI - Statistics for Experimenters - Doing More With Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin - Managing Our Way to Economic Success: Two Untapped Resources - Invest in new management methods not a failing company
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September 2nd, 2007 at 11:20 pm
[...] The Importance of Management Improvement by John Hunter from Curious Cat Management. As I continue through life I realize that this management improvement stuff really can matter if done right. [...]
September 20th, 2007 at 9:11 am
For me personally, it reminds me of my father: Bill Hunter who honestly believed, as he was stricken with cancer, he was luckier than most people that have ever lived. He was able to do many things that no-one, not even Kings, could have dreamed of even a hundred years before. I can’t manage such an outlook most of the time, but I do try and keep that spirit alive in me at times…
October 19th, 2007 at 8:18 am
I had not realized Dad was helping set up the first school of engineering in Singapore.
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:42 am
For the past 15 years I have been the managing director of the Institute for Business and Industrial Statistics… The interaction between scientific research and the application of quality technology via our consultancy work is the core operating principle of the institute
October 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am
[...] Great post. My father, Dr. William Hunter, did a great deal of work with appropriate technology (he was a chemical engineering, industrial engineering and statistics professor) and in management improvement. [...]
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:30 am
“The first advice I received from my new colleagues was to read the book by Box, Hunter and Hunter. The reason was clear. Because I was not familiar with industrial statistics I had to learn this from the authors who were really practicing statisticians.”