Monthly Archives: August 2011

Many Good Employees Want to Continue to Do Their Current Job Well

Posted on August 31, 2011 by John Hunter

Far too much focus on managing people is given to helping them get ahead. Yes many people want to be promoted, and it is good to help them. But I would guess a majority of people really don’t (at this time – they may want to look to promotional later) want to take on new responsibilities (even for more money). But much of the way many speak and coach is disconnected from this reality and really ends up being disrespectful … Continue reading →

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

When Companies Can Treat You Like an ATM, Many Will Do So

Posted on August 29, 2011 by John Hunter

The End of Refrigeration One small custom chip, some relays, a transformer, a couple of heat sinks, and a bunch of passive parts. Maybe a build cost of $20-30 or so? But GE’s price to me was $250, plus $150 for the 20 minutes it took to pull out the old one and swap in the new one. Paying $400 for a big piece of physical gear plus a couple hours of labor didn’t bother me. Paying $400 for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Investing, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Management Improvement Carnival #140

Posted on August 21, 2011 by John Hunter

Benjamin Mitchell hosts Management Improvement Carnival #140. He has choosen quite a few blogs making their first or second appearance on the management carnival (don’t forget to add blogs to your RSS feed that you are not already subscribed to), highlights include: Forecasting misunderstood by David M. Kasprzak David writes well about understanding the purpose of forecasting and reporting to avoid counter-productive fire-fighting management behaviour: Forecasting has to do with long-term vision and strategy, measurement, and learning. Focusing on reporting … Continue reading →

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Not Ambiguous Sign

Posted on August 18, 2011 by John Hunter

I like the series of posts by Jon Miller on Ambiguous signs (another example). Here is a sign that got my attention recently and they succeeded in keeping me away (which I think was their intention). The area is near the Royal Palace in Johor Bahru Malaysia, though I am not certain that is what the restricted area is. It isn’t obvious to me why this location requires shooting trespassers, but I took the idea from the sign to stay … Continue reading →

Posted in Quality tools | Tagged , ,

Visual Management with Brown M&Ms

Posted on August 15, 2011 by John Hunter

When you hear about rock musicians having a clause in their contract that they must have a bowl of M&Ms in their dressing room with all the brown M&Ms removed you could be excused for thinking: what will these crazy celebrities do next. Well it might just be those crazy celebrities are using visual management (granted I think there could be better methods [a bit more mistake proofing where the real problems would be manifest] but it is an interesting … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Quality tools | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Good Execution Can Make Management Tools Like Time and Motion Studies Useful

Posted on August 11, 2011 by John Hunter

In my experience most management concepts are applied poorly. Many of the concepts may also be bad. For example, performance appraisals are both done poorly and a bad idea. The solution is not to do performance appraisal righter: for what to do read Peter Scholtes. But, many tools and concepts that are applied with poor results, where the actual application is criticized (with good reason), can be used successfully. I would put benchmarking and time and motion studies in that … Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Carnival #139

Posted on August 10, 2011 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival has been published since 2006. We find great management blog posts and share them with you 3 times a month. We hope you find these post interesting and find some new blogs to start reading. Follow John Hunter online: Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, more. Questioning the Value of the P-Value by Jon Miller – “Father of modern statistics Ronald A. Fisher invented the p-value as an informal measure of evidence against the null hypothesis. Although … Continue reading →

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Maslow on Dealing with Authoritarians

Posted on August 8, 2011 by John Hunter

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is well known as a fundamental principle of human psychology. Maslow also said: “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Maslow on Management is a great book I was referred to by Kelly Allan. The following quote, from page 92, is quite dramatic and showed an understanding that some people (many CEOs) will just take what isn’t theirs, if others don’t stand … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Management, Psychology, Respect | Tagged , , , , ,

Management Blog Posts From September 2006

Posted on August 4, 2011 by John Hunter

Find a few selected posts from the Curious Cat Management Blog back in September 2006. Going lean Brings Long-term Payoffs – “The early paybacks provide resources to invest in making large more fundamental changes to the organization… Without visible success expecting employees to believe the new management practices is unwise.” Management Improvement History and Health Care – “I think it is wise to think about what improvement methods were tried in the past and try to understand why they failed … Continue reading →

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Best Selling Books In the Curious Cat Bookstore

Posted on August 3, 2011 by John Hunter

The most popular books in July at Curious Cat Books were, Statistics for Experiments (1st edition), followed by Statistics for Experiments (2nd edition) and the Leader’s Handbook by Peter Scholtes. These books are great, I am happy others have been finding them and reading them. Statistics for Experimenters is co-authored by my father. Top sellers so far this year (adding together all editions, including Kindle): 1) The Leader’s Handbook 2) Statistics for Experimenters 3) New Economics 4) Abolishing Performance Appraisals … Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Carnival #138

Posted on August 2, 2011 by John Hunter

Wally bock hosts Management Improvement Carnival #138 on the Three Star Leadership Blog, highlights include: Evidence Soup by Tracy Allison Altman. This is a blog about assessing evidence. If statistics are not your thing, you’ll pick up some tips and tricks that will help you analyze evidence to guide your decision making. If you’re a statistical whiz, you’ll find a lot here that’s just fun. Representative Recent Post: Big Ideas may not have supporting evidence, but they sell books by … Continue reading →

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