Category Archives: Creativity

Cutting Hours Instead of People

Posted on December 23, 2008 by John Hunter

When financial and economic realities reach the point that labor costs must be cut I believe a good option to consider is cutting hours (and pay) instead of people. Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Managing Passionate Employees

Posted on December 22, 2008 by John Hunter

Passion vs. Productive There are actually few organizations that can support passionate employees – even if they say they want them. That’s because the original industrial revolution was designed to support productivity. Productivity means you produce. That’s how you’re measured. … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Managing Passionate Employees

Eric Schmidt on Management at Google

Posted on November 24, 2008 by John Hunter

Eric Schmidt speaks at the Management Lab Summit on May 29, 2008 in Half Moon Bay, California. Conversation with Professor Gary Hamel. “The culture can be thought of as a ship and iterate culture with transparency for what people are … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Creativity, Google, Management, Popular, Software Development, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Restaurant Eliminates Tipping to Improve System Performance

Posted on October 13, 2008 by John Hunter

Why Tip? by Paul Wachter When he opened the Linkery [the broken link was removed], Porter said, he hoped his employees would become as emotionally invested in the venture as he was, sharing a sense of purpose and joy in … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Economics, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Does the Data Deluge Make the Scientific Method Obsolete?

Posted on September 29, 2008 by John Hunter

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete by Chris Anderson “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Innovation, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

The Ergonomics of Innovation

Posted on September 22, 2008 by John Hunter

The Ergonomics of Innovation by Hayagreeva Rao and Robert Sutton the IHI case teaches us that innovations spread quickly when organizations focus relentlessly on selecting and spreading ideas in ways that ease the burden of thought and action for everyone … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Health care, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The Ergonomics of Innovation

Agile PDSA

Posted on September 16, 2008 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming encouraged the use of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle to improve. Agile Management encourages a similar mindset – to test out ideas in practice and adapt quickly. A key to both strategies is to quickly iterate over possible solutions. Tesco … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Agile PDSA

Seth Godin: Intern Program and the Internet

Posted on September 3, 2008 by John Hunter

Learning from a summer intern program: I was overwhelmed by the quality of what I got back. (The quantity was expected… interesting internships are hard to find). I heard from students on most continents, with a huge variety of backgrounds … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Education, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged , | Comments Off on Seth Godin: Intern Program and the Internet

Tiger Woods and Lightning Bolt

Posted on August 22, 2008 by John Hunter

You have done pretty well when you can get people to post your ads on their blogs for the enjoyment of their readers. Enjoy this creativity and have a nice weekend. While on sports I also will mention Usain ‘Lightning’ … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity | Tagged , | Comments Off on Tiger Woods and Lightning Bolt

Some Good IT Business Ideas

Posted on July 22, 2008 by John Hunter

Paul Graham has some excellent ideas. I have written about some of them previously: Innovation Strategy, What Business Can Learn from Open Source and Google and Paul Graham’s Latest Essay. Y Combinator, which he founded, provides seed funding. Here are … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, IT, Software Development | Tagged , | 1 Comment