Category Archives: Systems thinking

What to Do To Create a Continual Improvement Culture

This month the ASQ Influential Voices discussion explores what to do and avoid in order to create a performance culture? James Lawther shared his ideas on what not to do to get things started. I have discussed steps to take … Continue reading

Posted in Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Publish Articles Promoting Better Management Using Open Journals

William Woodall shared this wonderful article he wrote with George E. P. Box with me, Innovation, Quality Engineering, and Statistics. My thoughts on being able to read it online: Thanks Bill, it is a great article. And thanks for having … Continue reading

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The Aim Should be the Best Life – Not Work v. Life Balance

My father had the most job satisfaction of anyone I have known. He had no separation between work and life. We toured factories on vacation. I visited Davidson College in North Carolina because he was consulting with a client in … Continue reading

Posted in Health care, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Lessons for Managers from Wisconsin and Duke Basketball

What can managers learn from Duke and Wisconsin’s basketball teams? Duke and Wisconsin are in the college basketball championship game tonight. They reached this stage through a great deal of hard work, skill, training and coaching. Raw talent matters to … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Strategy Based on Capability and Integrated with Execution

This month Bill Troy, ASQ CEO, asked ASQ Influential Voices bloggers to explore the topic of strategy. If you read about management and organizational strategy you will read a lot about planning and alignment and the process of creating a … Continue reading

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Take Advantage of the Strengths Each Person Brings to Work

The players have weaknesses. But it is our job as coaches to find the strengths in what our guys do. They all have strengths, and that’s what we highlight. What really helps is having Russell. He is so committed to … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Out of Touch Executives Damage Companies: Go to the Gemba

When your customer service organization is universally recognized as horrible adding sales requirements to customer service representatives jobs is a really bad practice. Sadly it isn’t at all surprising to learn of management doing just that at our largest companies. … Continue reading

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Vision can be a Powerful Driver but Most Often It is Just a Few Pretty Words

This month Bill Troy, the new CEO of ASQ, asked ASQ’s Influential Voices to explore the value of vision [the broken link was removed] to the success of organizations. An aim for the organization is extremely helpful when it allows … Continue reading

Posted in Systems thinking | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Gerald Suarez on Creating the Future

I was lucky enough to be hired by Gerald Suarez to work for him at the White House Military Office. The webcast below is speech he gave at TedX Loyola Marymount. The illusion of knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance. … Continue reading

Posted in Career, Management, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Root Cause, Interactions, Robustness and Design of Experiments

Eric Budd asked on The W. Edwards Deming Institute group (LinkedIn broke the link with a register wall so I removed the link): If observed performance/behavior in a system is a result of the interactions between components–and variation exists in … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments