Yearly Archives: 2007

Standard Prepaid Cell Phone Policy

Posted on June 21, 2007 by John Hunter

I ran across a specific example of standard policy that I found amusing (related to the post earlier today on Why Isn’t Work Standard). Like the authors, I can’t really see a reason for why you would want a policy … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Process improvement, Respect | 1 Comment

Why Isn’t Work Standard?

Posted on June 21, 2007 by John Hunter

Are You Really Asking? by Mark Graban The worst form would be, “Why the hell aren’t you following the standard work??? How many times do I have to emphasize that??” A better approach might be, “It appears that the standard … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools, Systems thinking | 5 Comments

Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation

Posted on June 19, 2007 by John Hunter

Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation Humans are very good at detecting patterns, but rather poor at detecting randomness. We expect random incidents of cancer to be spread homogeneously, when in fact true randomness results in random clusters, not homogeneity. … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Design of Experiments, Management, Psychology, Science, Statistics | 2 Comments

People are Our Most Important Asset

Posted on June 18, 2007 by John Hunter

One of the beliefs I try and get the organizations I work for to adopt is to truly value excellent people. The costs are challenges of hiring great people, to me, makes it critical to do what you can to … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect | Tagged coaching, Creativity, curiouscat, John Hunter, Management, managing people, Psychology, respect for people | 9 Comments

Innovation Thinking with Christensen

Posted on June 16, 2007 by John Hunter

In my opinion Clayton Christensen offers truly insightful ideas on innovation and management. He presents the rare management advice that is not only good but also new – an incredibly rare combination. The current issue of Business Week includes an … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, Management, Management Articles | Tagged Creativity, Customer focus, customer service, Deming, Innovation | 3 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #13

Posted on June 14, 2007 by John Hunter

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Outrageously Good Customer Service by Steven Levitt – “I would trade it all for a few more instances in which the airline does something out of the ordinary to get me … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Comments Off

How to Avoid Kaizen

Posted on June 13, 2007 by John Hunter

‘Disillusioned’ surgeon quits UK: In the theatre anaesthetists at the James Paget Hospital prepared the next patient while he was operating on another. He said: “I found I was wasting time between operations so I came up with this solution. … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Lean thinking, Management | Comments Off

Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay

Posted on June 11, 2007 by John Hunter

I continue to tilt at the robber barron CEO pay packages. Hopefully, at some point, the people approving these obscene pay packages can be shamed into stopping or replaced by people with some sense of decency. I was taught in … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged curiouscat, Deming, executive pay, management, overpaid executives, quote, respect for people | 10 Comments

Awesome CatCam

Posted on June 10, 2007 by John Hunter

I posted this to our science and engineering blog last week: Awesome Cat Cam. It doesn’t really have anything to do with management: I suppose I could make a case for creativity… but basically it is just really cool (it … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, curiouscat.com, Fun | Comments Off

Continuous, Constructive Feedback

Posted on June 7, 2007 by John Hunter

Employee performance: Continuous, constructive feedback yields results [the broken link was removed]: Be specific. If you simply say “Good job, Frank,” Frank won’t know exactly what he did to get that atta boy. Therefore, he can’t consciously work to repeat … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect | Tagged managing people, Performance Appraisal, Psychology | 4 Comments