Author Archives: John Hunter

Managing Fear

Posted on July 12, 2005 by John Hunter

The post, Root Causes of Crunch Mode [the broken link was removed] from the Game Manager blog makes the good point that Fear and anxiety are known to reduce comprehension and learning ability. W. Edwards Deming made “drive out fear” … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Could Toyota Fix GM

Posted on July 10, 2005 by John Hunter

re: Thomas L. Friedman: Save us, O Toyota based on Thomas L. Friedman article in the Herald Tribune Save us, O Toyota [the broken link was removed] where he states: I have a question: If I am rooting for General … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Management Articles | 1 Comment

The Art of Lean

Posted on July 10, 2005 by John Hunter

The Art of Lean [the broken link was removed], by Michael Rovito, The Sunday Challenger, Kentucky The lean style is the process of eliminating all waste in a manufacturing company by streamlining and simplifying shipping. Three key tools, according to … Continue reading →

Posted in Management Articles | Comments Off on The Art of Lean

Millennium Development Goals

Posted on July 9, 2005 by John Hunter

re: Six Sigma Training for the G-8? Interestingly Prime minstrel Blair recently showed an understanding of systems thinking (specifically how targets can result in worse performance, when targets result in distortion of the system rather than improvement). In the targets … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Health care, Management, Six sigma, Systems thinking | Tagged | Comments Off on Millennium Development Goals

Toyota as Homebuilder

Posted on July 8, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement Toyota Home – Applying the Toyota Production System to Home Building (broken link removed) from Evolving Excellence Toyota is all about cars and trucks, right? Not quite. I was just pointed to the Toyota Home [the broken … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Top 25: Influential Business Leaders

Posted on July 4, 2005 by John Hunter

Top 25: Influential Business Leaders [the broken link was removed] Leaders like Warren Buffett (No. 4), CEO of Berkshire Hathaway; chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Greenspan (No. 9) and business consultant W. Edwards Deming (No. 22) changed the … Continue reading →

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BBC Radio Program on Deming

Posted on July 4, 2005 by John Hunter

BBC radio has an online podcast of a discussion of W. Edwards Deming‘s ideas. As far as I can tell the program is available for downloading just for the next couple days [link broken, so it was removed. Re-found a … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, UK, webcast | Tagged | Comments Off on BBC Radio Program on Deming

National Parks

Posted on July 4, 2005 by John Hunter

I just returned from several weeks visiting National Parks in the Northwest USA: Olympic, Mount Saint Helens, North Cascades, Glacier and Mount Rainer. I will post photos of the parks to the Curious Cat Travels section as I have time. … Continue reading →

Posted in curiouscat.com, Travel photos | Tagged , , | Comments Off on National Parks

Targets Distorting the System

Posted on June 13, 2005 by John Hunter

I still remember Dr. Brian Joiner speaking about process improvement and the role of data well over a decade ago. He spoke of 3 ways to improve the figures: distort the data, distort the system and improve the system. Improving … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

From Mechanistic to Social Systemic Thinking

Posted on June 9, 2005 by John Hunter

The Ackoff Center has posted a presentation, From Mechanistic to Social Systemic Thinking (pdf format), given by Russell Ackoff in November 1993 at the Systems Thinking in Action Conference. As usual he presents many great ideas well. And ten years … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Systems thinking | 2 Comments