Category Archives: Competition

Lessons on Competition from Mother Nature

Posted on May 30, 2017 by John Hunter

An interesting short article by Joel Barker with some ideas to think about, Surviving the Fittest: New Lessons on Competition from Mother Nature As a result of this emerging body of research, we now must reexamine our competitive paradigm and factor in the new information. It is now clear that ‘the fittest’ not only don’t win all the time, but are only a piece of the more complex system. This information can lead to new strategies for small companies and … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Systems thinking | Tagged complexity, interactions, Investing, risk, Systems thinking | 1 Comment

Why Do People Fail to Adopt Better Management Methods?

Posted on February 2, 2017 by John Hunter

It is confusing to know that better methods exist but to see those better methods being ignored. It seems that if there were better ways to manage, people would adopt those methods. But this just isn’t the case; sometimes better methods will be adopted but often they won’t. People can be very attached to the way things have always been done. Or they can just be uncomfortable with the prospect of trying something new. In this post I will look … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Innovation, Management, Psychology | Tagged change, Innovation, leadership, Process improvement, Psychology, sports | 5 Comments

Cater to Customers Desires to Achieve Customer Delight

Posted on January 10, 2017 by John Hunter

Customer delight requires understanding your customers needs and desires. Often even your customers don’t understand these well. Businesses that have a deep appreciation for what their customers, and potential customers, desire and that create systems to deliver solutions that delight those customers benefit greatly from that effort. To build a sustainable enterprise you must provide value customers will appreciate. Your customers do not have one unified set of desires. Some customers may want as good an experience as is possible … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Customer focus, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged Customer focus, customer service, management system, organization as a system, Psychology, Systems thinking | 3 Comments

Decades Later The USA Health Care System is Still a Deadly Disease for Our Economy

Posted on March 30, 2016 by John Hunter

Decades ago W. Edwards Deming named 7 deadly diseases of western management. One of those was excessive health care costs. Sadly that deadly disease has become much worse in the last several decades. Americans pay 300% more for this prostate cancer drug than much of the rest of the world Xtandi, a prostate cancer drug co-licenced by Japan’s Astellas Pharma and Medivation Inc. was developed at a U.S. university with grants funded by taxpayer dollars. That gives the federal government … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Economics, Health care | Tagged deadly diseases, Deming, Economics, government, Health care, patent | 3 Comments

Toyota Posts Record Profit: Splits $15 million in Pay and Bonus for top 21 Executives

Posted on June 2, 2014 by John Hunter

After posting record profits of $17.9 billion Toyota proposes to increase the pay and bonus for the top 21 executives to $14.9 million. That is not as you might expect just the increase in the bonus to the CEO. That is the entire pay and bonus for the top 21 executives. That places all 21 together below the top 50 CEO paydays in the USA. Toyota’s net income for the year surged 89.5%. While the profits are partially due to … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Deming, Investing, Management, Popular, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged executive pay, executives, leadership, Management, overpaid executives, Popular, respect for people, Toyota | 3 Comments

Taking Risks Based on Evidence

Posted on November 14, 2013 by John Hunter

My opinion has long been that football teams are too scared to take an action that is smart but opens the coach to criticism. So instead of attempting to make it on 4th down (if you don’t understand American football, just skip this post) they punt because that is the decision that is accepted as reasonable. So instead of doing what is wise they do what avoids criticism. Fear drives them to take the less advantageous action. Now I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Creativity, Data, Innovation, Management, Psychology | Tagged Creativity, evidence based management, experiments, fear, Innovation, leadership, Psychology, risk, sports | 3 Comments

The Need to Improve Management While Building Organizations Fit For Human Beings

Posted on September 29, 2011 by John Hunter

[embedded video link broken, so that code was removed but you can watch the video by following this link: Gary Hamel: Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment. I agree with Gary Hamel that we need to adopt new management strategies. I happen to believe most of new strategies we need to adopt have been known for decades, we just fail to implement many of them. He argues it is hard to retain knowledge advantages (within companies). I agree. However execution … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Deming, Innovation, Management, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged Deming, Innovation, Lean thinking, management, management history, respect for people, Toyota Production System (TPS), webcast | 2 Comments

Rude Behavior Costs Companies

Posted on September 26, 2011 by John Hunter

Approximately one-third of consumers surveyed reported they’re treated rudely by an employee on an average of once a month and that these and other episodes of uncivil worker behavior make them less likely to patronize those businesses. Customers rarely report such behavior to employee supervisors, and management systems are so poor they don’t deal with this problem (good systems will – Trader Joe’s or Crutchfield, for example) ensuring a relentless cycle of poor employee behavior that leaves consumers angry and … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Customer focus, Psychology, Respect | Tagged bad service, Customer focus, customer service, management research, Psychology, respect for people | 6 Comments

Delighting Customers

Posted on July 26, 2010 by John Hunter

If you have customers that see you as adequate you will keep customers based on inertia. But you have several big problems awaiting you. Those trying to win your customers business only have to overcome inertia – which can be very low hurdle (saving a small bit of money, some minor additional feature). If your customers are delighted they won’t leave (by and large) without significant reasons to. Also your attempts to increase price are very likely to lead to … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Customer focus, Deming, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged continual improvement, curiouscat, Customer focus, customer service, Deming, management, Process improvement, quote, Systems thinking, tips | 5 Comments

The Trouble with Incentives: They Work

Posted on January 28, 2010 by John Hunter

Gipsie B. Ranney has a great new article – The Trouble with Incentives: They Work I have wondered whether the escalation of pay, perks and parachutes for CEOs actually tends to attract individuals who are primarily extrinsically motivated, rather than individuals who are seriously interested in creating value. Several recent examples appear to be consistent with this view. … An important issue with regard to incentives is possible effects on teamwork and cooperation. If the incentive system is set up … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Deming, Management, Management Articles, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged Deming, extrinsic motivation, management, Management Articles, managing people, motivation, Psychology, respect for people, Systems thinking | 8 Comments

How ‘Buy American’ Can Hurt U.S. Firms

Posted on September 16, 2009 by John Hunter

How ‘Buy American’ Can Hurt U.S. Firms Canadian communities angered by perceived American chauvinism have started a Buy Canadian campaign to exclude U.S. bidders from municipal contracts. “If that sticks, well, there goes 25% of my business,” said Mr. Pokorsky. “To me, Ontario may as well be Indiana.” Halton Hills, a town of 50,000 people about 25 miles west of Toronto, is one of about a dozen Canadian communities forging ahead with plans to amend their procurement policies to freeze … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Economics, Lean thinking, Systems thinking | Tagged Economics, Manufacturing, Public Sector, Systems thinking, Wisconsin | 2 Comments

When Performance-related Pay Backfires

Posted on August 3, 2009 by John Hunter

When Economic Incentives Backfire by Samuel Bowles, Sante Fe Institute Dozens of recent experiments show that rewarding self-interest with Economic incentives can backfire when they undermine what Adam Smith called “the moral sentiments.” Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn, is a great book on this topic. The area of “motivating” employees is one it is often hard for managers to learn. Even managers that have been studying Deming, Ackoff, Ohno… for years still have trouble with the idea that trying … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Data, Deming, Economics, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, quote, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged bonus, demotivate, executive pay, management, management research, motivation, respect for people | 4 Comments

Build Your Business Slowly and Without Huge Cash Requirements

Posted on April 12, 2009 by John Hunter

Get Rich Slow by Josh Quittner At no other time in recent history has it been easier or cheaper to start a new kind of company… These are Web-based businesses that cost almost nothing to get off the ground … The term ramen profitable was coined by Paul Graham, a Silicon Valley start-up investor, essayist and muse to LILO entrepreneurs. It means that your start-up is self-sustaining and can eke out enough profit to keep you alive on instant noodles … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Competition, Creativity, Innovation, Investing, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged business, Career, Creativity, internet, IT, Lean thinking, Software Development, Systems thinking

Easiest Countries for Doing Business 2008

Posted on November 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Singapore is again ranked first for Ease of Doing Business by the World Bank. For some reason they call the report issued in any given year as the report for the next year (which makes no sense to me). The data shown below is for the year they released the report. Country 2008 2007 2006 2005 Singapore 1 1 1 2 New Zealand 2 2 2 1 United States 3 3 3 3 Hong Kong 4 4 5 6 Denmark … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Economics, Management | Tagged Data, Economics, entrepreneur, global, Japan, UK, USA

Individual Bonuses Are Bad Management

Posted on August 7, 2008 by John Hunter

Gojko Adzic provides a nice post on Mary Poppendieck’s presentation at Agile 2008 on bonus, compensation and motivation: Paying programmers: are bonuses bad and what to do about it? In software development, it is very hard to establish the effects of individual contributions and good teamwork is key to the project. Most individual compensation schemes, according to the presentation, absorb vast amounts of management time and resources and leave nobody happy, but team compensation strategies are not easy to implement. … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, IT, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged bonus, Deming, Performance Appraisal, programming | 1 Comment

Pleasing Customers

Posted on March 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Why is 37signals so arrogant? by Don Norman The Brash Boys at 37signals Will Tell You: Keep it Simple, Stupid. Brash is an understatement. I was quoted in the article because of my article arguing that simplicity is highly overrated: the tasks that we do require tools that match the requirements, and these add complexity. … Yes, they are arrogant — and proud of it: “Arrogant is usually something you hurl at somebody as an insult,” Hansson said. “But when … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Psychology, quote, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged complexity, Customer focus, Psychology, Software Development, usability | 2 Comments