Monthly Archives: February 2010

Get Rid of the Performance Review

Posted on February 25, 2010 by John Hunter

How Much Do You Hate Performance Reviews? by Bob Sutton Deming emphasized that forced rankings and other merit ratings that breed internal competition are bad management because they undermine motivation and breed contempt for management among people who, at least … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal | Tagged Books, Deming, management, managing people, Performance Appraisal, respect for people | 3 Comments

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, Fulfillment and Flow

Posted on February 24, 2010 by John Hunter

“After a certain basic point, which translates, more or less, to just a few thousand dollars above the minimum poverty level, increases in material well being don’t see to affect how happy people are.” The speech includes, the first purpose … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Psychology, Respect, webcast | Tagged Books, Creativity, Economics, engineering, intrinsic motivation, Psychology, TED, webcast | Comments Off

Management Improvement Carnival #89

Posted on February 22, 2010 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management blog carnival highlights management blog posts 3 times each month. Also visit the Curious Cat Management Library for online management improvement articles. Three Surprises About Change by Chip and Dan Health (this is actually the full … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged Carnival | 1 Comment

Short Term Investing Focus

Posted on February 17, 2010 by John Hunter

Buffett’s New CEO Shows Analysts, Hedge-Fund Managers to Door [the broken link was removed] Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. completed the buyout yesterday after winning the approval of Burlington Northern investors. The deal, valued at $100 a share, allows Rose to … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Investing, Management | Tagged Deming, Investing, long term thinking, management, short term thinking, Warren Buffett | 4 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #88

Posted on February 15, 2010 by John Hunter

Since 2006 the Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival has provided links to interesting blog posts for those interesting in improving the practice of management especially focused on the ideas of Deming, Ohno, Ackoff, Scholtes, McGregor, Womack, Christensen… Putting the Checklist … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival | Tagged Carnival | 3 Comments

More Reasons to Avoid Layoffs

Posted on February 11, 2010 by John Hunter

Lay Off the Layoffs by Jeffrey Pfeffer As its former head of human resources once told me: “If people are your most important assets, why would you get rid of them?” … In fact, there is a growing body of … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Health care, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Psychology, Respect | Tagged Deming, health care system, layoffs, Lean thinking, Management Articles, managing people, Psychology, respect for people | 1 Comment

Circle of Influence

Posted on February 9, 2010 by John Hunter

In, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey discusses the circle of control, circle of influence and circle of concern. This provides a good framework from which to view issues as you look for improvement strategies. Within your … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Creativity, Deming, Management, Popular, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged curiouscat, John Hunter, Management, managing people, organization as a system, Popular, Psychology, quote, respect for people, tips | 9 Comments

Observations of a New Googler

Posted on February 6, 2010 by John Hunter

Some interesting thoughts from a new Google engineer, Things I’ve learned at Google so far I would describe Google’s culture as “creative chaos”. There was some confusion about where I was supposed to be when I started. This resulted in … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Google, Innovation, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged Creativity, Google, Innovation, management, Software Development | 2 Comments

Understanding Psychology: Slogans – Risky Tools

Posted on February 3, 2010 by John Hunter

Slogans mainly are bad. But like most things they can be used in ways that help or hurt. The main problem is when they substitute for a method to achieve the aim (most of the time). If the slogan serves … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Quality tools, quote, Respect | Tagged curiouscat, Deming, John Hunter, management, management tools, motivation, Psychology, quote, respect for people | 2 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #87

Posted on February 1, 2010 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival provides links to recent articles to help managers improve the performance organization. Lean in Sweden: Tools < Thinking by Mark Graban – “Tools have some value, but only in context of lean thinking and … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged blogs, Carnival, management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Comments Off