Category Archives: Management Articles

How to Accelerate Quality Management Practices

For world quality month, Paul Borawski selected the topic of accelerating quality for discussion by ASQ’s Influential Voices. He specifically asks: what can we do to accelerate the rate of adoption of quality? As far as what ASQ can do … Continue reading

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The Theory of Knowledge in Deming’s Management System: How Do We Know What We Know?

I contributed an article to the Process Excellence Network’s Deming Files that was published yesterday: How Do We Know What We Know?. I took on the task of explaining the theory of knowledge, as one article in a four part … Continue reading

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Finding Great Management Articles, Posts and Resources

Reddit is a web site that ranks web pages by user votes. The site uses an algorithm that has a very large timeliness factor. So top ranked links move down the list fairly quickly. This results in a nice site … Continue reading

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More Reasons to Avoid Layoffs

Lay Off the Layoffs by Jeffrey Pfeffer As its former head of human resources once told me: “If people are your most important assets, why would you get rid of them?” … In fact, there is a growing body of … Continue reading

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The Trouble with Incentives: They Work

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 … Continue reading

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Finding Savings with Six Sigma

I don’t see any evidence six sigma is making a comeback but magazines like to talk about new ideas rather than just explore what continues. They like to discuss common cause variation as though it were special cause. Six Sigma … Continue reading

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The Best Leadership Is Good Management

The Best Leadership Is Good Management [the broken link has been removed] by Henry Mintzberg Let me suggest that you should, because what we’ve been calling a financial crisis is actually one of management. Corporate America has had too much … Continue reading

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The Trouble with Performance Reviews by Jeffrey Pfeffer

The Trouble with Performance Reviews [the broken link was removed] by Jeffrey Pfeffer Managers don’t like giving appraisals, and employees don’t like getting them. Perhaps they’re not liked because both parties suspect what the evidence has proved for decades: Traditional … Continue reading

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Pixar Movie Management Magic

Image of Wall-e, from the Pixar film of the same name. Pixar’s secrets on display in ‘Up’ “I think it comes down to two basic things: one is that we’re run by artists. … John Lasseter is a film director, … Continue reading

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Building a Great Workforce

How P&G Finds and Keeps a Prized Workforce by Roger O. Crockett “We actually recruit for values,” says Chief Operating Officer Robert McDonald. “If you are not inspired to improve lives, this isn’t the company you want to work for.” … Continue reading

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