Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival #202

The Curious Cat management blog carnival has been published since 2006. New posts are published once or twice a month. I also publish a collection management improvement articles on the Curious Cat management improvement articles site.

• What Inexperienced Leaders Get Wrong (Hint: Management) by Rosabeth Moss Kanter – “While asking managers to become more visionary, let us also insist that leaders should be able to manage well.” (I agree – Managers Are Not Non-Leaders: Managers Need to Practice Things We Classify as Leadership Traits, John)
• Stack Ranking: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft’s performance review system? by Dare Obasanjo – “Most people at companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google either just got there or left before they would have to deal with the frustration of being disappointed by the performance appraisal system over multiple cycles.” (interesting post though I disagree with the conclusion that annual performance appraisals are a huge problem but we have to do them anyway and everyone just has to suffer, see: Performance without Appraisal, Dr. Deming on Performance Appraisal, Righter Performance Appraisal – John)


Photo in Malaysian Borneo (near Bako National Park) by John Hunter.

• Customer Focus As Seen From a Deming Perspective by John Hunter – “The Deming management system is designed to learn all we can from every customer interaction to improve the process of delivering value to all future customers. This mindset is a fundamentally different mindset from that of most companies…”
• Why the Only Way to Think is Long-term by Jon Miller – “he payback for developing people and processes is often faster and higher than expected, but not enough leaders know how to design these profitable on-the-job learning experiences. In a Lean enterprise, leaders must evolve from being order-giving authority figures to coaches and teachers who make the training and development a talent attractor and talent-retaining system.”
• 10 Lessons – Principles, Systems, Tools, Performance & Behavior by Mike Stoecklein – “7. When managers build systems that are aligned with principles, they drive ideal behaviors into the culture.

  8. The maximum value of improvement tools is only achieved when they are embedded into a system that is aligned with a principle.”

• Top misconceptions of the Lean movement, according to founder Jim Womack by Rick Spence – “In fact, he noted, the groundbreaking 1990 book included prominent chapters on managing customers, how to listen to your market, and running your entire enterprise on Lean principles. To understand that Lean is not just about production, he said, “You have to read the other four-fifths of the book.”
• Systems Thinking; Management By Doing The Right Thing by Andy Lippok – “Managers who appreciate this view act on the features of the system which govern quality of service, and consequently improve the behaviour and attitude of front-line staff – and improve service. The behaviour and attitude of front-line staff is governed by the system – it is frustrating and demoralising to work at the front of a poorly designed service organisation. Knowing that the manager is adding value, and seeing the results of changes to working practices is motivational. People like to learn.”
• Making Problems Visible Is More Difficult Than It Sounds by Gregg Stocker – “It is perfectly normal for people to want to show that processes are running smoothly and things are under control. Because of this, it is up to the company’s leaders to instill the idea that highlighting problems is not only acceptable but expected within the organization.”
• Why Bonus Systems Don’t Work by Pawel Brodzinski – “We can’t make bonus system right. The best we can do is damage control. The obvious follow-up question would be: so why the hell are we spending money to make people unhappy and harm our organization?”
• Jiro Dreams of Sushi by John Hunter – “Jiro (paraphrased and changed a bit): “When the fish gets to me the sushi is 95% complete. I prepare it in front of the customer so get the credit but the truth is the person doing the least work gets most of the credit”