Monthly Archives: May 2009

Pixar Movie Management Magic

Posted on May 29, 2009 by John Hunter

Image of Wall-e, from the Pixar film of the same name. Pixar’s secrets on display in ‘Up’ “I think it comes down to two basic things: one is that we’re run by artists. … John Lasseter is a film director, as opposed to being from a business school or whatever. He has that side of him as well, but he’s always approaching these things as the same way we are. “Second, we have some pretty great people that they’ve managed … Continue reading →

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

CEOs Want Health-Care Reform

Posted on May 28, 2009 by John Hunter

Decades ago Dr. Deming emphasized the deadly disease of excessive health care costs in the USA. Since then, year after year, the situation has become worse (reaching $2.2 trillion in spending in 2007 – 16.2% of GDP). During that time senior executives has put forth very little serious effort (in comparison to the huge cost) to fix this problem. Finally, in the last few years, more and more senior executives are actively moving to address the ever worsening crisis (including, … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Health care | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

In-N-Out Burger’s Six Secrets for Success

Posted on May 26, 2009 by John Hunter

In-N-Out Burger’s six secrets for out-and-out success [the broken link was removed] Listen to Your Customers — One of the company’s mottos is “Our customer is everything.” Applying that belief led to the company policy of preparing burgers just the way customers asked for them. Some of the customer favorites became popular and were eventually adopted as the restaurant chain’s “secret menu.” By listening to their customers, In-N-Out created menu choices other stores couldn’t duplicate. … Treat Employees Well — … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Customer focus, Management, Respect | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Google’s Innovative Use of Economics

Posted on May 24, 2009 by John Hunter

Secret of Googlenomics: Data-Fueled Recipe Brews Profitability Google depends on economic principles to hone what has become the search engine of choice for more than 60 percent of all Internet surfers, and the company uses auction theory to grease the skids of its own operations. All these calculations require an army of math geeks, algorithms of Ramanujanian complexity, and a sales force more comfortable with whiteboard markers than fairway irons. … Varian tried to understand the process better by applying … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Economics, Google | Tagged , ,

Management Improvement Carnival #64

Posted on May 21, 2009 by John Hunter

Mike Wroblewski is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #64 on the Got Boondoggle? blog, highlights include: Daily Scrum against the Board by Xavier Quesada Allue-“A good way to know if your team is using their taskboard to really manage their work is to look at their daily standup meeting.” Japanese CEOs and Leadership by Mark Graban-“When do you ever hear a Western CEO say ‘sorry’ or ‘we were lacking’?” Total Company Involvement by Pete Abilla-“When the hearts and minds of … Continue reading →

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Warren Buffett Answers Shareholder’s Questions – 2009

Posted on May 19, 2009 by John Hunter

Each year Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger answer questions in front of crowds of tens of thousands of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in Omaha, Nebraska. The question and answer sessions provide great wisdom on economics, investing and management. Here are some of the highlights I have found from the meeting (see more on the Curious Cat Investing and Economic Blog review of the answers) Buffett, Munger praise Google’s moat “Google has a huge new moat,” Munger said. “In fact I’ve probably … Continue reading →

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Revealed Preference

Posted on May 16, 2009 by John Hunter

Revealed Preference: the preference consumers display by their action, in contrast to what they may say they prefer. While surveys may be useful people often say they will do one thing and actually when given the choice to do so, don’t. Normally what matters is not what people say they want but what they actually will choose. For that reason revealed preference is a better measure than stated preference. Stated preference is often used as a proxy for actual preference … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Psychology, Statistics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Dr. Russell Ackoff Webcast on Systems Thinking

Posted on May 13, 2009 by John Hunter

Dr. Ackoff is one of two management thinkers that any manager, that is serious about improving management results in their organization, should study (the other is Dr. Deming). There are plenty of others that are also great resources. From part 2 of his talk: “Why-questions, about objects called systems, cannot be answered by the use of analysis… The product of explanation is understanding… The product of analysis is how things work, never why they work the way they do. Explanations … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, quote, Science, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #63

Posted on May 11, 2009 by John Hunter

Also visit the Curious Cat Management Library for online management improvement articles. What You Can Learn Zappos by Robert Scoble – “6. Train, train and train some more. Zappos has a whole department that puts together classes. Your pay goes up the more classes you complete. 18. Remember most policies are to take care of edge cases. They resist writing new policies at Zappos. When they do write a policy, they make sure it really is needed across the company. … Continue reading →

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Toyota Posts Loss of $6.9 Billion in Last Quarter

Posted on May 8, 2009 by John Hunter

Toyota Posts Loss of $6.9 Billion in Last Quarter For January-March, Toyota booked a $6.9 billion loss, in line with consensus estimates, and cut its annual dividend nearly 30 percent — the first cut since at least 1994, when it changed its reporting period. … Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe was more downbeat, stopping short of predicting when sales would pick up in major markets, or when the company would return to profitability as it remains saddled with excess capacity. “Of … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Investing, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Management Blog Posts From February 2006

Posted on May 7, 2009 by John Hunter

Performance Appraisal Problems – My best advice is to read chapter 9 of The Leader’s Handbook and read the rest of the Leader’s Handbook and other great management improvement books. And manage using the ideas of Deming, Ackoff, Scholtes, McGregor, Ohno… Refer back to the great books as you gain experience and continue to learn and practice management improvement. Global Manufacturing Data by Country – This data shows the United States manufacturing economy is continuing to grow and is solidly … Continue reading →

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Joel Spolsky Webcast on Creating Social Web Resources

Posted on May 4, 2009 by John Hunter

Joel Spolsky webcast on creating Stack Overflow (with the goal of providing answers to professional programmers) using ideas from anthropology. Once again he provides great information. This is particularly interesting for software development but also just a good presentation for understanding the importance of customer focus and systems thinking. What they focused on and did: Voting – Reddit… (see our management Reddit) Tags – lets you see what you want and to block tags you don’t want to see. Editing … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Software Development, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #62

Posted on May 2, 2009 by John Hunter

Mark Graban is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #62 on the Lean blog, highlights include: Why Quality is Dangerous (Dr. John Toussaint – ThedaCare Center Blog): “If we are going to have carrots and sticks it should be centered on what improvements healthcare organizations and providers are making every day, month, and year. Measuring and improving is how we are going to create better performance in healthcare not dictating and punishing.” Beth Israel Deaconess: Systems, safety, and (avoided) severance… (Steven … Continue reading →

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