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. Usually policies get killed.
- Unknown and unknowable by Michael Neiss – “The concept I see most overlooked and therefore, least implemented, is nemawashi, or the foundational work that needs to be done so that those that do the work on a daily basis integrate the knowledge into their everyday mindset.”
- Simplicity by Ron Pereira – “If I was only able to use one word to describe what lean and authentic continuous improvement meant to me I’d choose, without hesitation, simplicity.”
- How to Quit Your Job and Start a Company by Pamela Slim – “Know the kinds of problems you are trying to solve, and what value solving them would bring to your customers. Get clear on resources needed to bring your business to life… So move quickly, test often, fail fast, and discuss and document your assumptions.”
- In-the-Flow with Acumen Fund by Michael Idinopulos – “…already had all sorts of processes and mechanisms for capturing knowledge and ideas. The question was how to tap into those resources in a way that would create transparency, access, and reuse across the organization’s four locations in Hyderabad, Karachi, Nairobi, and New York.”
- Job Breakdown Sheet vs. Work Instruction by Bryan Lund – “Purpose of a Job Breakdown Sheet is distinctly different and clear. The primary purpose of a JBS is to serve as a trainer’s aid. It is not meant to be read by the trainee. It can be, but that isn’t the primary purpose”
- The difference between truly standing for something and a mission statement – “a tattered piece of paper with some clip art at the top of it pinned to a bulletin board. And it;s a mission statement that says this… And you’re sitting there reading this crap and wondering, ‘What kind of idiot do they take me for?’ It’’ just words on paper that are clearly disconnected from the reality of the experience.”
- A GPS for the TPS by Jon Miller – “How does a lean enterprise look and behave from the perspective of people, process and purpose? Asking a sensei to guide the vision and provide long-term direction is the best way”
- Lean Projects and Lean Management by Lee Fried – “through the involvement in Lean projects leadership will see all the management problems become visible. If they are good students and have good teachers they will then naturally begin to see how Lean applies not only to projects, but also their own processes (management system).”
- Lean and Kanban 2009 Conference: David Anderson by Mike Cottmeyer – “He has come to the conclusion that visual control are insufficient for managers and software based controls don’t create the right culture of accountability. His recommendation was to use both… interestng.”
- GM/UAW Jobs Bank or Wall Street? by Mark Graban – “Maybe that pattern of short-term bad thinking is the reason GM ended up on the path to ruin?”
- Leadership by John Hunter – “Leadership is the act of making others effective in achieving an aim.”
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