Monthly Archives: January 2013

The Market Discounts Proven Company Leadership Far Too Quickly

Posted on January 28, 2013 by John Hunter

Developing a strong executive leadership culture is not a short term effort. It isn’t based on one person. It almost never deteriorates quickly. Yet markets continually overact to minor blips on the long term success of companies. I think this is mainly due to a failure to appreciate systems and a failure to appreciate variation along with plenty of other contributing factors. The market’s weakness does provide investment opportunities. Though taking advantages of them is much more difficult than spotting … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Economics, Investing | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Leanpub Podcast on My Book – Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability

Posted on January 23, 2013 by John Hunter

I recently was interviewed for a podcast by Len Epp with Leanpub: Leanpub Podcast Interview #9: John Hunter. I hope you enjoy the podcast (download the mp3 of the podcast). In the podcast we cover quite a bit of ground quickly, so the details are limited (transcript of the interview). These links provide more details on items I mention in the podcast. They are listed below in the same order as they are raised in the podcast: John Hunter’s professional … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Data, Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Indirect Improvement

Posted on January 21, 2013 by John Hunter

Often the improvements that have the largest impact are focused on improving the effectiveness of thought and decision making. Improving the critical thinking in an organization has huge benefits over the long term. My strategy along the lines of improving critical thinking is not to make that the focus of some new effort. Instead that ability to reason more effectively will be an outcome of things such as: PDSA projects (where people learn that theories must be tested, “solutions” often … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Curious Cat 5th Annual Management Blog Review – Part 2 of 2

Posted on January 15, 2013 by John Hunter

The 5th annual Curious Cat Management Blog Review has been completed. This year, 15 blogs (a record) reviewed a total of 39 management blogs (not a record, in 2010 44 were reviewed). 4 blogs have been reviewed every year: Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog, Evolving Excellence, Gemba Panta Rei (all of which were reviewed by Ron Pereira on Lean Six Sigma Academy in 2008) and Timeback Management which was reviewed by me here on the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog. … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival | Tagged | 3 Comments

Management Blog Review 2012: Gemba Walkabout

Posted on January 9, 2013 by John Hunter

This is my second, of two, 2012 management blog review posts. In this post I look back at the last year on Mike Stoecklein’s Gemba Walkabout blog. Mike is the Director of Network Operations at Thedacare Center for Healthcare Value. In a very long post, Some thoughts on guiding principles, values & behaviors, he provides a sensibly explanation for one the real difficulties organization have making progress beyond a certain point (project success but failure to succeed in transforming the … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Deming, Health care, Process improvement | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Management Blog Review 2012: Not Running a Hospital

Posted on January 3, 2013 by John Hunter

Paul Levy started the Running a Hospital blog when he was the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Thankfully he has continued the blog, renamed to Not Running a Hospital, after leaving that position. Paul provides a huge number (the lowest number of posts in a month was 32) of valuable posts focused on health care, but worthwhile for everyone interested in improving the practice of management. In addition to his blog, during 2012 Paul published a wonderful book … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Management | Tagged , | 4 Comments