Yearly Archives: 2008

Fairness Matters

Sense of Fairness Affects Outlook, Decisions Burnout has been long associated with being overworked and underpaid, but psychologists Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter found that these were not the crucial factors. The single biggest difference between employees who suffered burnout … Continue reading

Posted in Management Articles, Psychology, Respect, Science | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Internships Increasing

Hard to find a job, but not an internship The bullish market for interns is good news for those in college, who find that internships are increasingly required for landing that first job. The summer posts allow students to bolster … Continue reading

Posted in Career, Management | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Department of Defense Lean Six Sigma

Gordon England, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, signed a directive establishing policy and assigning responsibilities to institutionalize the effort throughout DoD. See a webcast of his speech [the broken link was removed] on lean six sigma to a DoD conference … Continue reading

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Public Sector, Six sigma | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Department of Defense Lean Six Sigma

Businesses Tell the IRS They Are Not American but Executives Stay in USA

I have previously written about the ethically challenged companies that claim they are not American to avoid paying the taxes that they owe. For some reason the executives, often seem to stay in the USA though? It is sad that … Continue reading

Posted in Economics | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Engineering Innovation

(video link no longer works so it has been removed) In the webcast Dean Kamen discusses his latest innovation: robotic arms for people (amazing stuff). Once again he is doing great stuff. It is great what engineers can do (many … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management | Tagged , | Comments Off on Engineering Innovation

Management Improvement Carnival #36

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Adopting Agile Processes by Eric Engelmann – “So scrum is about fixing the system. If you don’t write code, it might not be apparent what’s different … Continue reading

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged , | Comments Off on Management Improvement Carnival #36

Outsourcing To America

Outsourcing To America [the broken link was removed] Toyota began operating in North America in the mid-1980s. It currently operates seven automotive plants there, four of which are in the U.S. A fifth plant is under production in Mississippi. Toyota … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Lean thinking, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Outsourcing To America

Paying New Employees to Quit

[the video is no longer available] Training new employees and then paying them to quit, sounds pretty bizarre; Zappos is not afraid of doing things differently. Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit – And You Should Too [Harvard broke … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Innovation, Management, Respect, webcast | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Why is Customer Service So Bad?

Why is it? I really don’t know. It drives me crazy though – having to put up with horrible service again and again. Is it possible that only a few people actually care about service? I know I care about … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Management | Tagged | 7 Comments

Some Posts from May 2005

Here are just a few posts from 3 years ago this month on the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog: A Traffic Congestion Non-Solution – Brain Joiner on Dr. Deming – Open Source Management Terms – Google: Good Service not Arbitrage … Continue reading

Posted in Management | Comments Off on Some Posts from May 2005